Ulysses
by loozy
Summary: She loves to do that when Don is unaware of her scrutiny and with his guard down. Robin- pov, Don, Billy; Don/Robin
1. Paper Planes

**Title:** Paper Planes  
**Series:** Ulysses *Prologue*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Don, Billy Cooper, Robin; Don/Robin  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** It was something that kept them sane, the methodical folding, the precision, something that soothed their tense minds. It was a distraction, to find the perfect fold, and a welcome one at that.  
**Word Count:** 1527  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** Inspired by my drabble in the Silence & Safety- series, Telephone... Beta'ed by the awesome vaeriev84 who also inspired a lot of what is to come in this fic...  
**Prompt:** # 23 Connection  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

Prologue – Paper Planes

Despite what Don might have told Charlie, he did not know how to do the perfect paper plane until he met Coop and was introduced to boring stakeouts and a gazillion methods of distraction.

Folding paper planes is one of them.

Coop has that down to an art and he showed Don how to improve his already good skills to perfection. Also, he showed him how to fold planes with a variety of materials, and still make them fly.

Napkins. Tissues. Cardboard. Wrapping paper.

You name it, Coop knows how to fold it.

As far as Don knows, he was the only partner that Coop ever showed his skills, which, in Don's eyes, mirrors the friendship and true partnership that they have shared. The friendship is still there, even if Coop is literally all over the place. They talk, they chat and email. They try to not lose contact like before the last time, though Coop understood completely. A parent's death is never something to be taken lightly, and even a year later, Don was still reeling from it.

After his brief stint in LA, they have both made an effort, and as a result, their friendship has strengthened. Coop knows all about Don's woman- troubles, he knows about Robin Brooks, about Liz Warner and then about Brooks again. He even met the headstrong prosecutor in Miami, when she was working on a case that he had handled. They had talked after the initial meeting, but when he had asked her out for a drink, she had declined, saying that she just broke up with a guy back in LA.

He had not thought much of it, had texted Don, asking him if he knew a prosecutor named Robin Brooks, to which his friend only replied, _She broke up with me last week_.

Coop had never mentioned it to Don that he had hit on his ex- girlfriend, not even when they were back together again, but when he called Don after his injury *unknowingly so*, his former partner had called him on it, in a teasing manner, though, that showed Coop that Don held no grudge against him. It was more like the other man was even gloating a bit. Back in the day, it had been Coop who had gotten more women than Don when they had been on a prowl after a rough case, and the fact that Don had gotten the woman had left him back, and that she had given Billy the boot had amused the laid- down man quite a bit.

Of course Robin had told him after she had seen photos of Don during his Fugitive Recovery- time.

Don had then proceeded to show her the perfect paper plane, something that Billy had folded for him when Don had been in hospital with a broken leg, courtesy of Manning Fields, a lovely fellow who had raped, strangled and quartered about a dozen women before being caught by agents in Las Vegas, only to escape on the prison transport.

Subsequently, Don and Billy, the more- or- less legendary FR- team, had been pitched on him, and their reputation had held. Fields had been back to prison within ten days. It had been a time of long treks on empty roads, and they must have folded about a hundred planes during that time. Whenever they had a rest, which was as good as never, they let the planes fly, trying to figure out which ones to chuck away into the nearest trash cans and which one to keep.

It was something that kept them sane, the methodical folding, the precision, something that soothed their tense minds. It was a distraction, to find the perfect fold, and a welcome one at that.

No- one can fold paper planes quite like Coop, not even Charlie, who thinks that for this you need an equation. Don had proven him quite wrong the evening after the chat in his brother's office. Sometimes you just needed a steady hand and experience.

Anyways, he now has a box full of planes, all of them mean something to him. He knows that Coop has a box of them in his place, too. They might be men, but they are also sentimental, and they knew that a partnership quite like theirs was one in a lifetime.

Some things just happen once, and this had been one of them.

Coop was, is, like the older brother that he never had. To him he could be a bit of a brat, he could whinge and moan and play the younger- brother, or junior agent card, even if Coop told him to stop the bullshit. Coop was vital in shaping him into the agent he is now. And he loved Fugitive Recovery, because he could be his own man. He was not a son or a brother. He was not 'the other Eppes- kid', he was Don Eppes, one part of a duo of agents who had tracked down more fugitives in their time than any other pair before and after them. They received recommendations from their superiors, even if their methods were a bit unorthodox at times, they even got recognition from the Director of the FBI and the President.

And now?

Now Coop is doing his thing with a steadily- changing flow of agents, who either move on after a while or regard FR as such a punishment that they go back to their desk job as soon as possible. FR- agents need to be of a certain calibre, otherwise you will not make the cut.

A good FR- agent needs to be in possession of a unique combination of patience and impatience, tenacity and relaxation. They need to have a good eye, an even better shooting ability and a most excellent mind. They have to have aced their profiling- classes in Quantico, and they need to have an insight into people that has to be part of their make- up, that cannot be trained.

Coop and Don had all of these traits and combined, they had proven deadly.

Well, not quite deadly. More like deadly successful. A ninety per cent closure rated showed off their success.

Now, years later, Don still likes to reminisce about the good old time, when his mother was still alive and berating him, or rather his mailbox, on a regular basis about not calling. When his father had gotten over the anger he had held when Don had joined the FBI, and was instead now proud of his son. When Charlie and him had barely been speaking.

No, actually, that last part just feels wrong. Don knows why they did not talk, why they did not keep in touch, and why he distanced himself from his family.

That all has changed.

His mother is dead, and he still cannot think about this without feeling a painful tug at his heart, a twinge.

His father and him are as close as they have ever been, since Don started kindergarten and became his own little person and the focus shifted from him to Charlie.

Charlie and he are the closest they have ever been. They even got through the hard times, they were still talking when Charlie did not have his clearance, and they are friends now.

Billy and him are in contact again, too. An injury will do that to you, help you get your priorities in order, and he had not known how much he missed Coop until he heard his voice on the phone. Before that, they managed to exchange emails and the occasional texts. Nothing big. Phone calls were sparse. He could tease his friend, laugh with him, discuss cases, just talk to him about nothing and everything.

It was like back in the day.

He misses that. As good friends as he is now with David and Colby, there was just something about his partnership with Coop... It was like what he had with Megan.

He digs through the box and finds another paper plane, the first one that Billy ever folded for him during a stakeout and lets it fly.

It lands at the feet of Robin who has just come into the room from the kitchen, holding two cups of tea in her hands. She just raises her eyebrows at him and grins. When she comes to him with a slightly sultry walk, he forgets all about the paper planes.

And the tea.

--

Robin, however, does not forget. Well, she does, until she wakes up before Don from the nap they both took after rolling around in bed for the better part of an hour. She sips her cold tea and contemplates the shoebox of paper planes lying on the box at the end of the bed, and the lone plane in the doorway.

She makes out the soft lines around Don's eyes, the slight tension in his shoulders that has not abated even in sleep and reaches a decision.

She carefully reaches over Don's prone body, grabs his phone and copies a number from it to her Blackberry.

Then she steps into the bathroom to make a call.


	2. Thanks for the Memories

**Title:** Thanks for the Memories  
**Series:** Ulysses  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Alan- pov; mention of Margaret, Charlie, Don, Robin, Amita, Millie, Billy Cooper; A/M, A/Mi, C/A, D/R  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** Maybe he had done wrong by Cooper. Maybe. He would always hold it against the other man that he had caused his wife to have many a sleepless night, even if Cooper was not responsible for it, logically.  
**Word Count:** 2003  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** Inspired valeriev84 is again the beta for this fic... She rocks my boat...  And feeds me plotbunnies...  
**Prompt:** # 4 Learning  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive. Please do not just tell me that I made a mistake in spelling or such and then leave it at that, but let me know what you thought of the chapter. I would very much appreciate this.

Notes to reviews:

Thank you so much for the reviews... I hope you like where I will be going with this fic and continue reading... There were two reviewers who critiqued parts of the fic, and I will adress them here, because they did not leave an adress or a link for me to respond to them via PM or email:

Lydia: Why should Cooper not have a bigger draw than Don? He is not a bad- looking man, and I never said that Don never did get a woman... I just said that Cooper got more than him :) As for the tea issue, check out Redhawke's website that has a profile on Don, where it is mentioned that Don drinks both tea and coffee... His reacton to Liz might have concerned the kind of tea, not the tea itself...

Paula: Thanks for pointing out my mistake, but how did you actually like the fic?

Chapter 1 – Thanks For The Memories

Alan wakes up, slightly disconcerted from the dream he had.

Margaret was in it, which has become a rarity in the last couple of years, and while he always welcomes her sight, this dream was a strange one.

He does not remember the exact details, he just has this unsettling feeling in his stomach now.

He feels too queasy to eat breakfast, so he just makes a cup of jasmine tea that soothes upset stomachs, and instead sits down on the piano stool, staring at the collection of photos up on top of the instrument, as if trying to find the answer in the photos that show Margaret with him, the boys, alone. None of them are sad photos; they are alive, laughing, in movement. No darkness, all summer and light and joy.

Back when everything was fine, when the only care they had was that their boys were not speaking. Or that Donnie had not called in two weeks, but they had heard in the news about the FBI chasing down a fugitive again, and they knew that their son was probably involved, as he was in most of the high- profile ones that they actually reported on national TV.

Or that Charlie and his girlfriend, Susan, over in the UK were happily settled in, and it seemed as though Charlie had found a place where he was so very happy and had found himself that they were a bit afraid that he might not return.

They had loved those couple of months after Margaret had returned to LA, and they had been on their own for the first time in just a bit more than two decades. They had made love and run around naked in the house, like they had done before common decency and Donnie had dictated they be more modest.

It was like they were on their second honeymoon.

He glances at one of the photos up there, a shot taken by Stan at a barbecue. Him hugging Margaret from behind, their smiles so big they seem to have overtaken their faces. He likes to remember those times.

And why should he not?

Everything was great. Great life. Great sons. Great partnership.

Just great.

There are a couple more of them from that evening, one of the pictures is on his nightstand now so that one of the first things he sees upon awakening is her beautiful smile.

Millie has a great smile, too, and a sense of humour so dark it rivals Margaret's, but he just cannot seem to take that photo off the stand. And Millie does not seem to mind.

She and Margaret would have gotten along fantastically. Probably way too well, and him and Charlie would have had to interfere.

The thought brings a soft smile to his face that stays on as he lets his eyes wander across more of the photos.

His eyes rest on a photo of Donnie as a baby, the first photo ever taken of him. He was just fresh out of being cleaned up and they had placed him in one of those small beds that were supposed to keep the infant warm. One of the nurses had taken a photo of him with a Polaroid camera to show Margaret once she awoke from the anaesthesia.

He had not lied when he told Robin in the hospital that Donnie's birth had been a difficult and strenuous one. For all of them.

Margaret had been in labour for twenty- seven hours, only slowly dilating, and no matter how often Alan told her that it was just because Donnie loved it so much in there that he did not want to come out, she still held his hand in a vice- like grip that seemed to break all the bones in his hand every time. Finally, when they had wheeled her into the delivery, complications had come up and they had to do an emergency Caesarean.

Alan had been forced to wait outside and had sworn to himself that he would never let anything again happen to the baby and his wife.

Funny, years later he stood in the same hospital and watched his wife die, with his firstborn by his side, and then even more years on, he watched his firstborn fight for his life.

With Charlie it had been so much easier.

Labour. Birth. Ping.

A son.

Of course, raising Charlie was much more of a struggle than Donnie had ever been. The baby that he had sung Sgt Pepper to still fell asleep the best when listening to the Beatles and grew into a shy little boy who taught himself how to read when he was three because he was just too curious.

About everything.

But Donnie did not run around asking questions. No, he went and tried to get the answers himself. Even if it was running out to the ice- cream van and asking the man how he made ice cream, scaring his mother half to death when she had come back from changing Charlie to find the front door open and her oldest son nowhere to be seen.

Donnie was a handful, yes, but as soon as he realized that his parents were occupied with Charlie as a baby, who was, contrary to his birth, demanding, and later when they discovered his talent, eight- year- old Don Eppes decided that he had to look out for himself.

Margaret had told Alan at some point, he cannot remember when, that she feared that Don might have overheard them talking about how to raise their two headstrong sons, and what to do with Charlie. It was clear as day that his talent had to be developed, honed, but at the same time what were they to do with Don?

Don had solved that question by making himself sandwiches after school, or cycling home after practice once he had gotten his parents' permission to cycle the ten minute- ride to school.

The growl in his stomach tells Alan that he probably should eat something. It is a Thursday, Charlie and Amita are going out for a rare weekend away tonight, working on their relationship, Millie and Larry are at a conference and he would have wanted to have dinner with Don and Robin if they are not caught up in a case. The last couple of weeks were intense and Don was up to his neck in work, which then often meant that Robin was not far behind.

He has not seen his son in almost two weeks and the one time he actually went up to the office, the team was out, only Nikki had remained, promising him that she would tell Don he had stopped by. When his son had rang him, he had sounded hurried, stressed, so Alan had told him to simply come over whenever.

After his return to LA, Don would come over to the Craftsman often, but now with Robin, he seems content to spend his rare quiet evenings in with her, and Alan does not hold it against him.

When he walks over to the kitchen, another photo catches his eye.

It is another one of Donnie, all grown- up, dressed in jeans and a white button- down with the sleeves rolled up, his hair shorn short, stubble grazing his jaw, decked out in tactical gear. He and the man beside him, Special Agent Billy Cooper, are sporting big smiles despite the exhaustion marring their features.

Don had send them that picture after chasing down Burt Brethren, a maniac paedophile and serial killer who liked to spy on mothers with their toddlers. After figuring out their routines, he would kidnap them, kill the mother and drop her off on the highest level of the biggest parking garage in the town he was currently in. The children he would then scar for life over a period of three weeks, moving around all the time before leaving them stranded at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere.

After five years of chasing him, he had managed to escape from custody with the help of a bribed officer who, as it was later discovered, had a bunch of pornographic material on his computer, as well has having laid hands on his seven- year- old daughter and four- year- old nephew.

The case had held the whole of America in its clutches, mothers had not gone out with their children unless they absolutely had to, playgrounds had been as good as deserted, as well as crèches, kindergartens and pre- schools.

Donnie had called once before starting the chase to inform them that if they did not hear from him, that they should not be worried.

Of course, they had worried, and not even his phone call at the end of the five- week- long chase had calmed Margaret enough who had been near hysterics by the time he had called. So, Don had asked one of his colleagues to take a photo of him and Cooper, or Coop, as he called him, as proof of life.

The photo had found a place on the wall, and Margaret, appalled at the skinniness of her son, had sent him a care package to his apartment in Boston.

The one time that Don and Cooper had made it to LA for more than a couple of hours, they had come over to stay the night at the Craftsman. Alan had not been able to help himself, but he had not liked Cooper very much, and upon their second meeting years later, he could not quell the dislike.

He did not know why exactly.

As far as they knew, and Margaret had overanalyzed every word of the letters that Donnie sent, Cooper had been the man who had helped his son to get out of the black hole that he seemed to have fallen into after his three- month stint in Detroit.

Something had happened in Detroit that Don had never talked about, but Alan remembers that the phone calls got darker and darker every time they talked.

He had to find out what had happened. Now that he can recall the Donnie of then, he is filled with unease once again. Cooper had helped him through this. Fugitive Recovery had not been a good time for Donnie, who, even though he excelled at it, was more of a homebody than any of their family had ever expected.

He needed a foundation, a place to come home to; he needed people around himself, familiar faces.

Something had happened in Detroit.

Only what?

He could not lose that train of thought.

Maybe he had done wrong by Cooper. Maybe. He would always hold it against the other man that he had caused his wife to have many a sleepless night, even if Cooper was not responsible for it, logically. But the redhead had been the reason why Donnie had stayed in FR as long as he had.

But Alan had also seen the way his son's face had lit up when he had talked to him on the phone when he was on sick leave. Maybe now that things seemed to have calmed down, they could reconnect?

Margaret would have been so proud of him. She had loved Cooper, had seen him for the friend that he was to Donnie.

_Someone stable for him, Alan. You know how Donnie gets. He needs people, but he also needs his constant. And Billy is that to him. He is a very nice man with good manners. A bit gruff, but so is Donnie, haven't you noticed?_

_Donnie has become a man. _

_A good man. And Cooper is partially responsible for that. You should not hold that against him. _

Somewhere he had Cooper's number stashed away, from years back, when Don had given them the number in a case of emergency and he could not be reached.

If the number was still correct, then Alan had to make a phone call now.


	3. Who Are You?

**Title:** Who Are You?  
**Series:** Ulysses  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Billy Cooper, mention of others  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** He does not know, and he does not care. He has his family, he knows he has his sisters' support, and he knows that they know him. Know why he is doing this, why he cannot stop being in FR. It is in his blood, he needs to do this.

**Word Count:** 2441  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** valeriev84 is again the beta for this chapter...  
**Prompt:** # 53 Support  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 2 – Who Are You?**

William Donnelly Chaplan Cooper is not someone who shares.

His life story, at least.

He will share food, and space and ammo, but to get him to talk about his past is something that only a handful of people have managed.

His primary school teacher, when he did not yet know the power of secrets.

His first girlfriend, Karla, because he loved her like he had, and has, actually, never done before and since then.

The FBI- guy he interviewed with because he had to.

Don Eppes, because he was his partner, and his best friend.

To anyone else, he is an enigma. Well, so is Don, in a certain way, but they are made of different stuff.

Don's status as an enigma comes from his hidden intelligence, the one he so rarely openly lets shine through, his intuition.

His status comes from simply not talking about himself. Sure, whoever wants to know about him might just as well, if they have the proper clearance, get his file, but he doubts that any will actually go to the trouble. Because if he finds out that they have been snooping around about him, he will want to know why, and he doubts that he will get the answers he wants, then.

Not a lot of people like him, which would explain the stream of partners he has had since Don transferred out of Fugitive Recovery and on to Quantico.

Granted, he knew from the start that Eppes might be excellent in FR, but he can do more. He is a born leader, whereas Cooper prefers to work alone, or with a partner. He does not have a lot of demands, but the one that has been true ever since he got promoted to team leader in FR, he has wanted someone who has as much guts as he has, and not everybody measures up.

In fact, before Don, there was only one agent, Special Agent Mariah Branovich, who he got along with. He would have stayed with her as a partner had she not gotten pregnant and taken a desk job.

Such a waste of resources.

He got lucky when the next partner he got assigned was Don Eppes, fresh from Detroit; the AD of his office told Cooper that Eppes had been stuck in Detroit for three months with a good- for- nothing partner who eventually requested the junior agent transferred because he could not get along with him. Eppes did not want to get coffee or answer telephones or do boring work. He was a field agent and had not been quiet about that, driving Special Agent Kevin Fetherson nearly insane with his constant badgering.

Fetherson had been the one who had suggested to stick Eppes with Fugitive Recovery because he was just tenacious enough. According to AD Conventelli, Fetherson had called Don a terrier, the same nickname that Conventelli had given Cooper.

Coincidence?

Conventelli did not think so and paired them up.

A match made in heaven.

Or hell.

Depends on who you ask.

They fit together like gloves, their personalities both strong, both dominant men who managed to gel perfectly by being stubborn, vocal and introverted; their combination bred the instinct of a bloodhound, as the Director had told them, which meant that they were probably the best pair of trackers who were not actually trained for the job.

They stuck together for two- and- a- half years, and Cooper knows that neither of them has shared so much stuff with anyone else, beside Robin Brooks in Don's case, since then.

By the time they parted, they knew the other as well as they knew themselves.

Don knows that he likes his coffee cold in the morning, with a lot of milk. That his toothbrush has to be green and he does not use anything but Colgate. He has to sleep on the right side of the bed and can only fall asleep when lying on his left side. The scar on the back of his knee is from when he fell into a shard of glass when playing Hide & Seek with his cousins when he was four. The scar on his shoulder blade is from a rough tackle during an impromptu football match at the beginning of his sophomore year in high school. He likes to collect recipes even though he will probably never have the time to cook them all.

But he likes knowing that he has them.

He is an ambidextrous, and can write with his toes, kind of; that came handy when he broke both his arms after a cycling accident, when his older sister Catherine crashed into him, and he really wanted to write the school exams they had. Of course he could not write all exams, but at least he gave it a shot.

Speaking of, he never backs down from a challenge and is willing to try everything at least once as long as it is not insane. He has played football, soccer, tennis, basketball, baseball, was into athletics, triple- jump, hurdles and high- jump, learned how to do karate, volleyball, and paragliding.

He likes to be active, and when he finally signed up for the FBI and heard of FR he knew that was what he wanted to do.

His instructor wanted him to consider SWAT but Billy wanted FR, and it turned out to be the better option. He was in SWAT at first, after completing training and then pushed for FR relentlessly.

This was what he was born to do, and nobody was going to keep him away from it.

He got paired up with Michael Vollangey, a Chicago Bulls- fan who thought Michael Jordan was God, and loved to listen to recorded games when they were on the road. He reminds Cooper, now, a bit of David Sinclair, Don's second- in- command. Cool, calm, collected. A consummate professional, with a wicked sense of humour that he only rarely let shine through the exterior of the cool African-American man that he had cultivated. He was a good trainer, someone from whom Billy learned a lot, but he knew that he could do better.

Now, more than fifteen years later, he is solo once again, and he loves it.

His current partner, Dellen DelVecio, stupid name, seriously, is on vacation and has left Cooper hanging high and dry, but honestly, he is not missing the company. DelVecio is a boring loser, someone who should be sitting behind a desk somewhere in a quiet region, the desert, where no- one is going to bother him.

According to his resume and from what his superiors told Cooper, the guy rocked the training, but now he is just lacking any instinct, any drive. He just sits and moans about being away from his parents, his granny, his fiancée.

Well, now he is gone to see them and hopefully, when he's back, he won't moan and whinge so much. If he continues on that track, Cooper might just kick him out the door and leave him stranded.

Preferably in the middle of nowhere.

DelVecio is not someone that Cooper would want to talk to about his life. The guy is over- sharing at every junction, whenever he opens his mouth, Cooper would love to scream 'TMI!' He just knows that he will get a rundown of every second of DelVecio's time off. Probably even a description of the sex with his woman.

Blech.

Cooper could use a vacation himself, but his twin sister Theresa, who he usually goes to visit, is in Europe where her husband is on a lecture series around German universities. He could go and visit his parents but they barely recognize Catherine, and she comes to visit them every day. The last time they talked, she told him she had shown them a photo of him and Theresa, and they had asked who those two were. If that was them when they were younger, seeing as both him and Theresa are the splitting images of their parents.

An actual visit of him or Theresa would upset them very much, so the doctors have actually told them to stay away.

Usually he would say 'Screw that' and go and visit them anyways, but they are his parents, and he does not want to hurt them. He does not want to hurt his sisters, either, and he knows what it would do to them.

Catherine is stuck at the convent at the moment, doing another series of fasting and not receiving visitors. She is only allowed to go out to visit the parents because otherwise the old ones' health would deteriorate even more than it is already doing.

So he cannot visit her either.

He would love to go and drop by LA but knows that if he showed up at the Craftsman, he would be less than welcome.

Gas is nearly empty, and he stops by the next station to fill up the tank. His introspective mood is broken by the overly cheery Barbra, the owner's daughter, who helps out during her summer vacation, chattering his ear off, asking about his travels once he has revealed that he is an FBI- agent.

That is one thing that he is not reluctant to talk to people about, because it usually keeps them from diving too much into his personality, to try to get to know him too much. They are distracted by all that the Feds represent, and a mention of his occupation either starts a tantrum or rant about the inefficiency of government agencies, or the direct opposite.

The girl in front of him loves the Feds, she gushes. She watches every telly show about Feds, and wants to become one of them, as soon as she is old enough to join up. She wants to know if he can give her a reference.

Or if she can do him another favour and turns around to display an enticing backside barely hidden by a skirt so short Theresa would not even dress her three- year- old daughter in.

This reminds him, from every petrol station he takes a photograph of the metre- stand for his nephew, seven- year- old Daniel, who loves to see how much his uncle has driven and then tries to calculate the average speed that he was going at. Sometimes, Daniel reminds him of Charlie Eppes, whom Cooper met once, when he was in LA a couple of years back, man hunting with Don once again.

Boy, it had felt so good, to be with Don again, to tease him, to call him Donnie, to know that the guy he was working with had his back a hundred per cent and was not going screw up by running away like a sissy.

But he got the impression that Charlie did not like him. For whatever reason.

He understands why Alan Eppes might not be his biggest fan.

But what did he ever do to the genius? Aside from helping his brother work through some of the rage that his younger partner felt towards his little brother. So what if he could not imagine that the Don Eppes that he had worked with so intimately would rely on maths to solve their cases? To use them as a crutch to catch the perp and not his own superbly honed skills?

He was witness to more than one fit that Don threw in the car when years of pent- up emotion unloaded.

This is how close they were. How close they are again.

They shared everything, every emotion, every thought. They did not hold back. Screaming matches and massive fights were not unknown to them. They relied on the other to catch them when they were overwhelmed, when they had to just let their guard down.

Only someone who has been in FR knows how it feels like. Can relate to the torrent of emotion going through you when you are closing in on who you have been chasing. When the elusive comes so close that you can nearly feel their breath.

And then the tension unloads, and with the tension memories often come to the surface that otherwise would never see the light of day.

Don knows about his father, a colonel in the Navy, who was deployed a lot, who taught his children a sense of justice that Cooper wants to pass on. He took them out hunting with their grandfather, he showed Cooper how to track, how to hunt. He was the one to discover that Billy had a knack for finding tracks, for discovering clues.

Don knows about his mother, a teacher, who loved to read to their children, who was the consummate housewife after school.

People sometimes think that Cooper grew up in a rough household because of his demeanour, when in actuality it was the direct opposite.

So what does it say about him that he, the notorious loner, grew up in a loving family?

He does not know, and he does not care. He has his family, he knows he has his sisters' support, and he knows that they know him. Know why he is doing this, why he cannot stop being in FR. It is in his blood, he needs to do this.

He comes back down to Earth when Barbra asks him for the money. He pays her absentmindedly, still, and then drives off. He is between cases right now, and has half a mind to call his superior and ask him for a vacation.

He really needs one.

Even if it is just to lie in his apartment and do nothing.

And then the phone rings. It is a cell phone that he does not recognize.

"Special Agent Cooper."

"Cooper? This is Robin. Robin Brooks. Remember me?"

"How could I forget? I thought Don was gonna come down and kick my ass."

"Don't sweat it."

Soft laughter.

"So, what is it that you want, Robin Brooks, AUSA? And I'm not even going to ask how you got my number."

"Oh, that was easy. He's sleeping, but his phone is not."

Now he is the one laughing.

"Listen, there is something I've been wondering..."

---

Three hours later he has called in his vacation with his superior, promising to fill out the proper form as soon as he gets to Chicago, where he will drop off the car at his apartment and take the next outgoing flight to Los Angeles tomorrow.

And then the phone rings again.

An LA number.

"Special Agent Cooper."

"Hello, this is Alan Eppes. Agent Cooper, can I have a moment of your time?"


	4. Ramifications of Romantic Entaglement

**Title:** Ramifications of Romantic Entaglement  
**Series:** Ulysses  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Robin, Don, Billy Cooper; Robin/ Don  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** Never has she seen Don Eppes so surprised and shocked and stunned and delighted at the same time.

**Word Count:** 2411  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** valeriev84 was beta- ing this fic for me again... Am especially thankful to her because this time I was kinda blind to errors in language as well as spelling... Blech...

**Prompt:** # 29 Encounter  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 3 – Ramifications of Romantic Entanglement**

Two days after her phone call, Cooper calls her back, tells her that he is on his way and that he got a phone call by Alan Eppes, too, and would she happen to know anything about it?

From the silence on her end of the line, he then makes the astute guess that Robin was not in the know and that this is all just a freaky coincidence.

But what kind of one!

As far as Robin knows, from what Don told her, Alan is not inclined to be on his friendliest behaviour when it comes to Billy Cooper, and she cannot wait to see her boyfriend's reaction when she tells him that Alan called the other man. On the other hand, it also shows that Alan and her are on the same wavelength when it comes to Don, and that they both seemed to recognize the hidden need in him to reconnect with his former partner.

Lately, things have been hectic.

Sticks and stones have been thrown in their paths, and they nearly did not make it out of all those accumulated messes alive. But they are here now, carpe diem and all that. The stabbing forced her to re- evaluate everything.

Her life's ambition.

Her relationships, both personal and professional.

Her living situation.

This is actually the most pressing matter of them. She knows that her career is important to her, that she wants to get places by being a prosecutor, maybe even a judge at some point in the future, but she also wants a family. And she wants this family with Don, that much has been clear for her ever since they took a trip to the beach and Don taught her how to surf. The gentleness and patience with which he handled her, how he taught her, and treated her, and then she knew that she did not want anyone but him.

And she wants to have his children, too.

This is something that she needs to talk to him about, soon. Otherwise she might just burst from the tension that is steadily rising inside her. She might just explode at a really inopportune moment and make a scene, all in an attempt to tell him that he is her man. That she only wants him.

She gets along well with her co- workers and her superiors, and she is on good terms with almost the entire floor of the Violent Crimes Unit in the FBI- office, though she does not know how sincere they are or whether they just want to avoid trouble with the boss, Don.

She could always talk to Cooper about Don, about what he knows of his thoughts about children, marriage and all that. Don used to be engaged, to one of his co- workers in Albuquerque who is now a Secret Service- agent, but she broke it off when he moved back to Los Angeles to be with his family. So that means that he was ready to commit to someone, to start a family.

What she wants to know, though, if she is the one for him now.

Like _the one_.

Sure, he told her that she was the one for him, that there was no- one else but her, but she is a woman, and sometimes even she can be insecure and wants insurance that he is there to stay.

She'll just have to pick Cooper's brain. The one time they met in Miami, once he had stopped hitting on her after Don texted him the night before who she was, they got along great. He was a persistent one, that Fugitive Recovery- guy.

On Monday night, fresh from Los Angeles and having just broken up with Don on Friday, they had sat in the same hotel lounge and he had hit on her, working his not inconsiderable charm to the nines, but she shot him off. He was good, and if it had been any other situation, like if she had not known Don Eppes, it might have even worked.

The timing could not have been worse, though. She told him that she just broke up with her boyfriend and was not in the mood. She respected him for the work he did, she added, and was very grateful, and upon catching his suggestive leer, but not grateful enough.

To her immense surprise, he sat down beside her the next night and apologized.

He actually apologized for hitting on her. It had been inappropriate of him to do this, and unprofessional. Plus, she was Don's ex. There was a rule against that, somewhere, that said that he could not hit on his mate's ex- bird. He had really said it like that.

She had laughed and told him that he could not have known, to which he responded that Don had told him about her, that prosecutor that he was dating. He refrained from telling the rest of the mail that Don had sent him; Don himself, in a moment of openness, told her about the email, how he had rambled on and on about her, that he liked her, how great she was and all that.

Cooper berated himself for not noticing that she was that prosecutor.

She told him again that he could not have known, unless Don had told him that they had broken up, and at that point in time, he had had not even told his father and brother, much less his former partner. Or anyone else, for that matter, actually.

Instead he had hooked up with Liz Warner, which was a bit of a sore spot, and it had taken a long talk between her and the agent to clear the air, so that both knew where they stood.

Anyways, her and Cooper had spent the night talking, about FR, about being a lawyer, and now again, about Don. Cooper was in a generous mood and regaled her with some stories from FR that probably, or actually very likely, not even his family knew about. She had laughed at the antics the guys had pulled sometimes to get results and then realized that she might have made a mistake.

And now they are here, three years later, and Cooper is coming to LA because Alan and her both asked him to drop by.

It shows the bond that they are sharing still. Had Cooper rang Don, asking for him, she knows that he would have come running. She loves that about him, that he is so protective about those he cares about, and that he actually cares more deeply than the rough exterior ever would suggest.

Don does not know that Billy is coming, and she agreed to pick him up from LAX, then drive him over to the Craftsman where Alan is hosting an impromptu barbecue. For Don the invitation was just that Alan did not want to spend Friday night alone at the house, what with both Larry and Millie at a conference, and Charlie and Amita gone to re- evaluate their relationship, that he had bought enough steaks for all of them, and that they should just get their asses moving over there once they were finished in the office.

She told Don that she had to pick someone up from the airport and that she would meet him at his childhood home. He does not suspect a thing. She knows that look he gets when he is on to something, and he fell for her little white lie hook, line and sinker.

Brilliant.

She parks her car in the short- term section and then goes to the designated gate where Cooper's flight from Chicago is due to land in twenty minutes. Traffic was surprisingly light, so she made it ahead of the time she estimated. Sitting down she grabs _People_- magazine from her purse, one of her vices, along with chips and Ben & Jerry's ice- cream and starts to read. Don is endlessly teasing her about her actually reading the magazines from front to back. She buys four of them regularly and takes great pleasure in reading out loud the latest rumours. At some point he actually threatened to burn the magazines. Just his luck that she has subscribed to one of the gossips and three of her fashion magazines- he cannot escape her.

Plus, he has a very effective method to shut her up and make her forget all about the magazines, and this is such a literally pleasurable way to pass the time.

Not that she minds reading, no, she loves it, but come on, have you seen Don Eppes?

Now imagine him in boxers and a tee, if even the tee, seducing you.

Puuuuuuhlease, like you would not cave!

Reading up the latest on Brangelina, Jennifer Anniston with Bradley Cooper (making a mental note that she has to drag Don to the movies next weekend) and all others, she forgets time and is thus quite surprised when a shadow falls over her. Looking up, the shadow reveals itself to be none other than Billy Cooper, boyish grin lightening up his face.

"Well, well, well... I can see that Don has not managed to wean you off those trashy things yet."

She answers his grin.

"Pff. Never."

They hug and the strengths in both their hugs convey how glad they actually are to see each other.

"It's been a while, Counsellor. I was quite surprised to get a call from you."

They start to head out of the gate, towards her car.

"I was even more surprised to get a call from Mr Eppes."

"Believe me, so was I. From what Don has told me, you are definitely not on Alan's Christmas card- list."

"Maybe I am now."

"Do you even read Christmas- cards?"

"I read the ones my niece and nephew give me."

"Haha... How are they?"

"Oh, they're great. Actually, they're really cute."

"Cute? You are using the word 'cute?"

"Shh, woman, you do not know me well enough to call me on that."

She kicks him slightly in the shins, and as the banter continues, they get into the car. In a surprisingly gentlemanly move, Billy pays the fee for the car park, and soon they are on their way to Pasadena, music softly playing from the radio. The silence enveloping them is comfortable, and Robin cannot help but remember how she has also felt that way with Cooper, instantly, even, back in Miami. It is not a sexually charged comfortableness, but an atmosphere of understanding.

"So, how is he, really?"

They are waiting at a red light so she has the chance to actually look at him for longer than a split second. There is honest concern on his face, deepening the lines around his face.

"He's okay. Different from when we started dating, for the first time. Less reckless."

"You know, I never actually really associated him with recklessness, and it always surprised me when others did. Of the two of us, I was the more adventurous one. He always had a plan."

"He knows more where he wants to go now; who he is."

Billy, she has just called him Billy, never Cooper, only Don's use of the name has changed that in her head, nods, pleased.

"That's good. He needed that."

They sink back into silence, only occasionally breaking it when one of them comments on something the presenter on the radio says, and the drive passes fairly quickly. They just about beat rush hour, and she is glad of it. Not that she would have minded spending time with Billy in a car, but her stomach is growling and when she turns into the street where the Craftsman is, she imagines she can already smell the meat, salads and bread that Alan has prepared.

"You hungry?"

The growling was actually loud enough to be heard over the radio, and if she was not so ravenous, she would be embarrassed.

"So sue me, in preparation of the food awaiting us I only had a light lunch. When Alan is barbecue- ing, he takes it to a whole new level. You will want to be rolled places, because it is so much handier than walking after eating."

He chuckles.

"Don used to tell me about the food both his parents would cook, which was always a bit of torture because he always did that when we were stuck at a stake- out and all we had was fuck- all food."

"I think if Don was not running regularly and still playing tennis when we have time, he would be fat as a bear. Seriously. And so would I."

They both chuckle.

Don's SUV is already in the driveway and she simply parks behind him, in the knowledge that Don will hear the car and will want to come out for a bit of private shnoggin'- time, as she calls it, before they go in to meet with Alan. It has been the usual par of the course so far, every time, and she doubts, unsuspecting as Don is, that he will change his routine.

Which makes the surprise so much sweeter.

"Hey!"

And there he is, waving to her, dressed in jeans and a tight tee, nicely emphasizing his muscles; his manner is carefree and relaxed, the team is not on call this weekend for the first time in three months and so he knows that for the next forty- eight hours, nothing bad can happen to them; for a moment she can only devour him with her eyes, wanting nothing more but to drag him into the car and have her wicked way with him.

He moves to greet her when she hears the passenger door open and Billy gets out.

Out of the corner of her eyes she sees Alan coming from the back, watching the scene.

And then Don stops dead in his tracks when he recognizes the red- haired man.

The expression on his face is wondrous, disbelieving and all the hassle was so worth it just to see this.

Never has she seen Don Eppes so surprised and shocked and stunned and delighted at the same time.

She wishes she had a camera.

_Spending money on phone calls to connect to someone? $30_

_Washing the sheets for the couch in the spare room at the dry cleaners? $20_

_Gas money for the trip to and from LAX? $30_

_Surprising your boyfriend? Priceless._


	5. Exclamation Points in the Middle of Calm

**Title:** Exclamation Points in the Middle of Serenity  
**Series:** Ulysses *4/10*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Alan, Don, mention of Robin, Billy Cooper, Charlie, Margaret  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** _"If Charlie had been the firstborn, would you even have tried for a second child?"_

**Word Count:** 3210  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** There is an awesome beta in this world, and her name is valeriev84...

**Prompt:** # 14 Time  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

Chapter 4 – Exclamation Points in the Middle of Serenity

He wishes he had a camera.

He wishes he could freeze this moment forever, swears to himself that he will never forget this moment, the feeling, the way his son's face lights up like it has not done so for ages, it seems.

This unforgettable moment, when his oldest son is receiving a present from two people who love him.

Two people who both saw his need for someone who shaped him into who he is now. Alan can see that now, he can deal with that now. He is done holding a grudge against Cooper. He might not like the man, but hey, now he has the time to get a better grip on him, a better feel. This weekend is for exactly that, getting to know each other, and to connect with his son again.

Don might be coming over to the Craftsman all the time and everything, but something is amiss. They might never be able to get back to where they were when it was just Alan and Donnie when Margaret kicked them out for a couple of hours, but he would like to try at least.

He swallows at the look on his son's face. It is an expression that he has not seen since Donnie was five- years- old and he had just brought Margaret and little baby Charlie to the Craftsman.

_His oldest son, God, how could he be old already in a way, when he was still so young and small and fragile, was standing beside his grandmother, jumping up and down, trying to tear his hand from Alan's mother. He kept pointing out to the car, to his parents who were beaming at him with pride and pleasure._

_From the moment that they had sat him down and told him that he was going to be a big brother, Donnie had been excited. He had dragged around one of Margaret's old books on pregnancy everywhere, to the supermarket and to kindergarten, telling everybody who would stop long enough to listen. A lot of people did, because Donnie was, still is, just an exceptionally cute boy; so he talked about labour, and how he was going to take care of his little brother._

_He has never seen his rambunctious son so serene, as he is sitting on the couch, Charlie in his arms. _

_He does not take his eyes away from the creature in his arms, his right hand continually touching the baby's round cheeks, as if he still cannot believe that he finally has his little brother. He does not say a word, has not said a word since he saw Charlie for the first time._

_And in turn, they have not heard a squawk from the infant, even though Alan saw his eyes opening a couple of minutes ago._

_Already in the hospital they found out that, where Don had been silent and stoic and curious, Charlie always wanted attention._

_Now, it seems, he has realized that he already has the full attention of someone, so does not feel the need to make his consciousness known.  
It is such a touching moment, Alan can feel it inside, churning, a rush of emotions nearly overwhelming him, when he hears a soft clic. From the corner of his eye catches Margaret lowering her camera. _

_He already knows that this picture will go into his wallet to be shown around. _

_His pride, his two children. _

_And the look on Don's face, this mixture of wonderment, affection, amazement, fierce protectiveness and just plain old love is something that will never leave his memory._

Now that look, that exact look, is back on Donnie's face. Only, it is older now, of course, nearly thirty-five years have passed since then, and Alan has to swallow at the implication. It is still the same expression, only now the wrinkles around his eyes are more pronounced than he has ever seen them. The smile is wider than even when he is teasing Charlie, calling him 'Chuckles'. It is a beautiful thing to witness, and he cannot tear his gaze away from that scene.

The two men are just standing there, as if frozen in time, a still life, with the car, the house, Robin and him as props. So many emotions are captured in this picture, happiness, delight, pride, affection, love, even happiness, with one overlaying them all: sheer and utter joy.

This is what has been missing from Don's life lately, even if his outlook has changed since the injury.

Joy.

The _joie de vivre_, something that used to burst from Donnie's small chest, had been crushed by responsibility, but for now, Don is Donnie fresh from the Academy again (Alan knows from a reliable source, Robin, that Cooper is the only person other than his parents that gets away with calling him 'Donnie').

"What the fuck?"

His son rarely swears, a virtue that Margaret and Alan worked hard on, especially when Donnie came home from primary school during first grade, repeating all kinds of vicious swear words that would have forced his grandmother to wash out his mouth. That had not even been the bad thing, it was easy to tell Don (he knew he was in trouble when either of his parents called him by that name) to stop.

The problem was Charlie.

Star struck as his younger son was, he copied everything his big brother did, and of course that meant that he would repeat everything that Donnie said. Charlie was one- year- old then and just learning to talk, but it was hard to get him to get him to keep the constant babbling to a minimum when necessary on a good day. Now, with all the naughty words, he was unstoppable.

He said the words everywhere and at the end of the week, Margaret was mortified enough to tell Alan that they would have to move. Charlie had told everyone the words he had heard from Donnie and would not keep silent about it.

A harsh talking to had finally resulted in him quieting down, but the sad face he had pulled had haunted Alan. He rarely scolded his sons, rarely had reason to, but this was one of the few times. He did not like it, but every parent had to do things they did not like. Margaret had already handled Don, so it was his turn with Charlie.

Funny, even though Margaret would later be the one who mainly accompanied Charlie, she and Donnie had the stronger connection.

How much must it have hurt him when she focused nearly solely on Charlie?

Standing in the driveway, watching his son embrace his old friend with a hug that shows that their connection is still strong despite seeing each other so sparsely, he realizes that he must ask his son about that. They try to avoid talks about emotions, none of the Eppes- men is built that way, but there are some things that cannot be ignored.

He is torn from his musings when the guys break their hhug, complete with manly back clapping, and Don turns towards Robin and then him when he sees the conspiratorial look she is throwing him.

"Both of you?"

They nod.

Billy stands beside him now, smiling in a way that Alan never would have thought the other man able to, abashed, touched.

"Seriously?"

They nod again.

"Wow."

He rakes his hand through his hair, looks at his watch.

He is nervous.

Donnie is nervous.

Who would have thought that Alan would see his usually so self- assured son like this.

Nervous. Speechless. Stunned.

"You guys..."

One more glance at the watch. Then over to Cooper.

"When? How?"

It is time to take charge again before they spend all night out here and not with the food that he painstakingly prepared for the big arrival.

"Come on out back, the food is all set up. Then we can talk."

He gives Cooper a meaningful look. The other man returns it without flinching, though slight apprehension is showing through.

So, Cooper came when he asked, and also followed Robin's beck and call, but he is still not sure how Alan feels about him.

Well, neither does Alan. But they have until Monday morning to figure out.

Now, it is over to the food first, and if Cooper is anything like his son, then he will have the appetite of a grizzly bear. At least that is what Margaret always said when Donnie came home during his time in FR. They would cook up a feast, and he would just gobble it down, as if he had not had food for weeks. But then again, he was so skinny, all muscle and bones and sinew, like Cooper that it might have been plausible. Well, Don is still fit as a horse, has always been, but life in one place has softened him a bit, which is a look Alan much prefers to the Iron Man- one that he sported.

Don and Robin hang back for a second, no doubt so that Don can thank his girlfriend appropriately, and there is a bit of awkward silence as Alan leads Cooper to the backyard.

"Cool."

Cooper sweeps the place with the professional eye of a hunter, a look that Alan has seen way too many times on Don's face, and rests on the koi pond then.

"So, this is the infamous pond?"

Alan grins. _Infamous_. That is the right word.

"Yeah, it was Margaret's idea. Her grandfather had a pond back in Karlsruhe. They had to leave them behind when they had to leave. He would always tell her about the pond, how beautiful it was. I think we even have a picture of it in one of the old albums."

Cooper's face shows his sincere gratitude, and he himself is surprised by what he just shared with the other man. He only ever has told Stan the story behind the koi pond.

"Yeah, Don told me about it and about how Charlie fell in and killed kois during an experiment, right?"

Alan grins. So Don actually told Cooper the _other_ koi- story. Interesting.

"Oh, so he did not tell you about when he played baseball and one of his balls killed one of the kois?"

Cooper snorts.

"Nah."

"He was beside himself trying to come up with the money to buy a new koi."

"How old was he?"

"Seven, I think. He was still in primary school and we did not know about Charlie yet."

Cooper nods but does not comment. And there it is again, the vibe that Alan gets from him whenever the other is in Charlie's company or his name is mentioned.

He apparently is not a Charlie Eppes- fan; which could mean that Donnie revealed to him things he kept from his parents.

Oh God.

He needs to get out of here for a moment.

"Excuse me, I'll get the drinks."

"Do you need a hand?"

Before he is forced to answer and decline, Don and Robin come into the garden and when Cooper turns towards his friend, Alan uses that moment to flee to the kitchen.

Inside he rests for a moment.

He knows that Donnie loves his brother now, that he loved him when he was a kid. But there were years when they did not talk at all, when they could not be in one room with each other without shouting. Did they do so much wrong with Donnie; did they ignore him that much?

He remembers games they could not attend, practices where another mother or Donnie with his bike brought him back home, times when they left him alone when they went with Charlie to yet another psychiatrist or tutor or benefactor that might help them support their genius' education.

And in the meantime, Donnie grew up by himself.

Oh God. All of a sudden, the good mood is gone. He shivers.

"Dad?"

How long he has been standing in front of the open fridge, he does not know, but obviously it was long enough for Don to get worried.

"You okay?"

His son is wearing his FBI- face, the inquisitive look very much familiar to him. There is also an imploring twinkle in the dark eyes, and a tension around the mouth that was not there earlier, even when they were waiting for Robin and Cooper.

His son is worried.

And his kind of worry leads to curiosity, to probing, to questions and answers that Alan would rather not face now.

"Yeah, sure, I'm okay."

"You sure? You don't look so good."

"Well, I'm cold."

"Well, that could be because you are standing in front of the open fridge."

"Haha. Very funny."

"Dad."

"Not now, Don."

He is brusque, the harshness of his tone conveys that, and from the wide eyes he can tell that Don gets the point, but when the stubbornness returns, he can also tell that Don will not let this rest. Alan as good as never loses his composure like that, so there must be a reason.

Don backs off.

"You need a hand?"

"Yeah, thanks. The beer is in the fridge, there is a red wine on the shelf. Don't forget the wine opener, it's a fresh bottle."

"Sure."

Another careful look and Don heads out to the garden.

He needs to get a grip on himself. Don will pester him soon enough. For now, he wants to enjoy this quiet moment. Maybe he will learn something about his son, something that he has not known before.

He grabs the bottle of extra virgin olive oil flavoured with lime and mango that he had cooling in the fridge and when he closes the fridge door, one of the magnets comes loose and the picture underneath it falls to the floor.

It is a photo of Don in baseball- uniform, when he was in senior year. One of the biggest arguments he ever had with Don (and there are actually not that many) stems from this year.

"_Dad, please. He is annoying. He always sits in the bleachers with his frickin' notebooks and does stats on us."_

"_Donnie, you know how your brother is."_

"_He's a pest sometimes, Dad! You don't know how he is! You're never there!"_

"_Donnie, you know that your mother and I both have to work."_

"_Yeah, but that's just so that Charlie can get the best of everything."_

_His son's tone is mocking, disdain obvious._

"_His education is important."_

"_And what about me? When was the last time you or Mom were both at a game together? You are always busy with Charlie or with him at a conference, at a tutor's or at another meeting at Classic to talk about his bright future."_

"_His talent needs to be nurtured."_

"_And what about my talent? Coach said that a lot of motivation comes from the players knowing they are being supported. That those who only play for the career and the money and all that will never be really happy. It is the family that they need to lean on. So tell me, what is my support? The squint? You or Mom? It always looks as if it is a chore to watch me play!"_

"_Now, Don, that is not true. We always enjoy watching you play!"_

"_Yeah, but you almost never wait for me after. Back in Little League we'd go for pancakes sometimes to celebrate. Or have ice- cream. But now you're always off again."_

"_Well, don't you want to be with your friends?"_

_Don leans against the fridge. He inhales, and then exhales, slowly. His head bumps softly against the door._

"_It's not about that."_

_He walks over, leans against the sink to the left of the fridge._

"_Then what is it?"_

"_It's about you taking the time to wait for me."_

_Don pushes off the sink, walks to the swinging doors._

"_Dad, I know you and Mom love me. But sometimes, when you are always on about Charlie this and Charlie that..."_

_He trails off, pushes against the door. _

"_Donnie, we worry about you, too. You are off to college next year, in another state, with no- one. So of course we worry. That you won't miss us. That you won't need us any longer."_

"_Dad, I'm already pretty self- sufficient."_

"_It's not that kind of need that I mean, Donnie."_

"_You worried I won't need you?"_

"_It does happen to kids who go to college. Especially with you. It seems you can't wait to leave."_

_Donnie is in an unusually open mood, and he needs to take this opportunity; another one might not come for years. Their son is so self- contained, so quiet that Margaret and he worry that he might implode. He keeps his emotions to himself, and they are afraid that when he leaves, he will not return. They talk about it at night, in bed, but have never breached that topic with their oldest. _

_Maybe now is the right time. _

"_So what? Doesn't mean I'm not coming back."_

_And there you have it. He actually wants to get out of here. _

_But can they really blame him?_

"_Dad, it's just... I need to be my own person."_

_Don looks down at his watch, brushes his hand over the buzz- cut the whole baseball team got upon the start of the season. _

"_We understand that. But we're your parents... We can't stop worrying."_

"_You never seemed to worry when I had to come home to an empty house, something that never could happen with Charlie, because, God forbid, he might feel alone and left out."_

_The snarky tone that he and Margaret have become way too accustomed to is back._

"_Charlie arrived and it was all fine and dandy until he turned three. And then all of a sudden, it was all about him!"_

_The snark is gone, now hurt is coming out. And when Don is hurt, he lashes out. _

"_If Charlie had been the firstborn, would you even have tried for a second child?"_

_Alan stares at him, shocked. It is a question that he has wondered about himself, knows that Margaret probably did, too. It probably would have been better had she had this conversation with Don. She is him in all but appearance, can relate to him better than to Charlie. _

_He needs her. _

_And where is she? Off with Charlie, at a meeting with a professor from Stanford, about scholarships and funding. _

_Oh, the irony does not escape him._

_Don obviously interprets his silence for a negative. _

"_Well, there you have it."_

_And he all but storms out of the kitchen, thundering up the stairs. Seconds later, he is storming down them again, and then out of the house._

_Yes, he needs Margaret. So much. _

_Fuck it. _

Fuck it.

Charlie is gone for the weekend, and even if Cooper is here, he will take the time. They are over the tension, but that does not mean it has been resolved.

With a mental shake to himself, he pins the photo back to the fridge and heads out into the garden to enjoy the company he has over.

For tonight, only bright and light and shiny things count.


	6. On the Difficulty of Becoming a Hero

**Title:** On the Difficulty of Becoming a Hero  
**Series:** Ulysses *5/10*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Billy Cooper- pov, Don, Robin, Alan, Margaret, Charlie, Don/ Robin, minor Alan/Margaret  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary:** You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there's no toilet close by, and you smell each other's sweat when the last shower has been too long.

Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.

**Word Count:** 4244  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** There is an awesome beta in this world, and her name is valeriev84...

**Prompt:** # 101 Interrogation  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 5 – On the Difficulty of Becoming a Hero**

"So, this is your backyard?"

"No, Coop. We actually have a bigger one at the back of this one."

Coop sticks his tongue out at Don who has come over with a cold one from the fridge, hands it to him. He takes a long sip.

"Ohhhh... Just what I need."

"You always need that."

More tongue- showing, accompanied by a snicker from Robin this time, who is sitting at the table, drinking a glass of red wine.

"How old are you guys again?"

They turn in her direction, twin expressions of incomprehension imprinted on their faces. Don decides to deign her with an answer.

"What do you mean?"

She points to both of them with her glass.

"You. Both of you. I mean, one of you is enough, but how will I survive a weekend of this?"

"Just be glad it's just a weekend; you weren't the poor bastards who had to stake out a place with us during our first year together. Man, those boys never wanted to work with us again after that."

At his comment, Don clinks their bottles and the two men smirk.

"So, this is what this weekend will be like?"

"Yes."

"Very likely."

She groans and moves to refill her glass.

"Oh God. I think I'm gonna need more than this."

Don grins and moves over to her chair, bending down and in an uncharacteristic movement of affection gives her a lingering kiss.

"Marking your territory, Eppes?"

They both grin at Billy.

"You know it, Coop."

"Okay, I think I got the message a couple of years ago."

He playfully leers at them.

"But, you know, if you want to... We could have a good time."

Don and Robin exchange a glance. Don opens his mouth first.

"Sure, why not?"

"I'd be up for it."

"Always open for new things."

"Yeah, actually, I might have had a dream about this."

"Woah, you guys know I was just messing?"

"Damn."

"Too bad."

Billy sits down at the table.

"Seriously, though, you guys. I'm glad for you."

"Thanks, Coop."

"But hey, Brooks, you know if you ever need a change of gear, you have my number."

He waggles her eyebrows to which she responds by licking her lips.

"Sure thing, darling."

"Good. Now, on to business. The meat is grilling, your dad is getting salad and such. I'm starving!"

Don gets up.

"I'll see what's holding him."

He heads into the kitchen. Billy and Robin stare at each other.

"So, how is he, really?"

He stares at her, intently, trying to gauge her reaction to the question. It has turned the mood from playful to somber, and she slowly twirls the wine in her glass.

"He's okay. He's coping. We all are. It's been a rough couple of weeks. During our first try, we probably would have broken up over that. Now, we're better. We support each other."

"That's nice. It's good, that you both have this."

"Thanks, Billy."

Comfortable silence. Billy likes that in Robin, that she has this aura about her, that calm silence. People who do not know her or do not make the effort to get to know her, often mistake that silence for coldness, for a flaw of hers, when in truth, it is very much a part of her. She knows how to make someone who is troubled feel relaxed, how to give them peace of mind; it is a gift, and he is sure that not too many men have benefitted from it.

He knows that Don and he are among those.

Billy really wants to ask her, wants to know how many men she has affected, or how many men have affected her, in a way that has inevitably changed her. But that is not a question to be asked on the first night. No, this is something that he will delve into at a later point during the weekend. They might know each other, and have an understanding, but Robin Brooks and he are not that tight, yet.

He likes to make assumptions about her, it keeps him and her both on their toes. It is a game that they have played ever since meeting. She does it to him, too.

Their contact has been sporadic at best, but just like with Don, he simply clicks with her.

The number of people he trusts implicitly is slightly lower than the amount of digits on one of his hands.

Catherine, Theresa, Don, Robin.

Don comes back, holding more beer and wine, looking distraught, to them, at least. To everybody else, he would look normal, maybe a bit tense, but nothing that would seem too much out of the ordinary.

They know better.

Something just happened in the kitchen and judging from the scowl now making its way onto his face, the issue is better left alone for now, as much as it nags at Billy, as much as he wants to pester the other man; he can feel the same vibe coming from Robin.

It is their protective streak towards Don coming out full throttle.

"Everything okay?"

Don puts the bottles down with a bit too much force.

"Yup."

"'cuz, hate to tell you this, you're not lookin' so hot there, Eppes."

"It's nothing."

They are ganging up on Don now. Robin's expression softens a bit and she reaches a hand out to her boyfriend.

"This is not your blasé expression, Don."

He plops down in the chair between Robin and Billy and, in an unusual display of affection, grabs Robin's hand, squeezes it.

"Something's off with my Dad. He stood in the kitchen, all broody and just staring off into space."

He tugs at his earlobe with his free hand.

"I mean, I know he's been bothered with what has happened in the last couple of weeks, but if he keeps it in, he will implode at some point, for sure."

"Says you, who is so open and loves to share his innermost thoughts."

He knows that the sarcasm is biting and maybe a bit uncalled for, but experience has taught Billy that the best way to get a rise out of Eppes is to taunt him till the cows come home.

"I... Uhm..."

A telling look at his watch. Hand rakes through his hair.

"Well..."

They just sit and watch him dig his grave.

"Yes? You were saying?"

"Oh, lay off me, Coop. I do share stuff. Don't I?"

At this, Don glances over at Robin, who nods but with a smirking twinkle in her eyes (and Billy will never figure out how a woman, or anyone at that, can smirk with their eyes).

"Yes, he does share, Billy. But only when you sit on him."

"You or me?"

"Well, I think you could sit on him, too. It is a method that has been proven to work."

Don makes a strangled sound at the back of his throat, while Robin just beams at Billy. Who beams right back.

Ganging up on Don Eppes with someone who is witty and intelligent enough to not let go or give up is a wonderful thing to do. There have not been enough people who can hold their own when caught in a verbal spar between Don and Billy.

Aside from Theresa and Margaret Eppes, Robin is the only one that Billy can think of right now.

He will not even start to analyze the fact that they are all women. Maybe he should ask Robin later how Charlie would fare in a duel like this.

Is he jealous of the younger Eppes?

No, not really. Right? He has no reason to, after all. The bond that he and Don share cannot be compared to that of the brothers, estranged as they might have been oHow isduring Don's time in Fugitive Recovery. They are brothers, brothers in arms, and that is not what you share when you grow up with each other.

It is both more estranging and more intimate.

You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there's no toilet close by, and you smell each other's sweat when the last shower has been too long.

Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.

It is a brotherhood bred from need, necessity and love.

You are brothers in all but blood.

With a brother you wrestle and you fight, and you bitch to your parents about him. You give him noogies and ignore him at school because he is a pest but in the end you are brothers, and that will never ever change.

You will be brothers even if you never talk to each other, and this is something that cannot be severed.

There were times when he wished that Don was his brother, most recently when he was up in LA helping out, and he saw how Charlie had wormed his way into his older brother's work. He was jealous, could not help but take a little jab at Charlie when he witnessed what Don had wished for ever since Charlie and he had started attending the same high school.

They were communicating.

If Margaret Eppes had been witness to this, Billy knows that she would have been so full of pride. Those two boys of hers were her heartbreak and greatest loves, all in one. With Alan, it was a love that was unconditional and eternal.

With Don and Charlie, she was torn-

The clatter of cutlery rips him from his musings.

Don and Robin, in their own world, have pushed one of the napkins to the grass and knife and fork followed the same path. They do not pay much heed to them, simply pick them back up and then return to conversing quietly, leaving Billy alone for the moment for which he is grateful for.

He only met Margaret Eppes twice. Once in LA when Don and he stayed over at the Craftsman when they had a case in the city, and once in Boston when she flew down to visit her son in the hospital after he had gotten beaten up and shot.

During the short time in Los Angeles, Billy met her as the mother, as Mom, bustling about the house, making food for them to take with them when they were on their way later in the evening, doing their laundry and clucking away at their weight. She told them that they needed to be fed and continued to stuff them until Billy thought he was about to explode.

He jokingly told her that he was now a turkey ripe for Thanksgiving, to which she only looked at them sadly and mentioned that the chances of either of them making it home for Thanksgiving were rather slim, weren't they?

She was compassionate and loving, unlike her husband she had taken to Billy. Alan was always short with him, never hiding the fact how much he disliked him, whereas Margaret just let her instincts take over. It had made her a great lawyer, a great prosecutor, as Don had told him full of pride. He probably would have followed in her footsteps had he not wanted to do something completely different from what his family expected him to do.

Don Eppes, the flower child who had been on sit- ins when he was a babe, was a G- man.

Margaret had taken silent pride in that, Alan had fumed.

Billy hoped that Don knew that his mother had always been proud of him, would have been proud of him no matter what career choice he made; that he had chosen law enforcement just showed how alike they had been. Margaret had been aware of it, Don probably not so much.

He had very little self- esteem when it came to his position in the family, and had only come into his place during his mother's illness from what Billy could discern.

Margaret had bustled about the house, fussed over them, and both Don and he had rejoiced in it. She told Don all about the latest scandals in the neighbourhood while making him fold laundry and set the table. Billy had done his part by assisting her with her cooking; early on in their partnership Don had told him that he was hopeless at cooking but good at housework, so they always split the chores when they actually had enough time to sit down and be domestic.

She had sent them off with the backseat filled with cakes and coolers with food, telling them to discard the coolers, or to pawn them off. They would not need them anymore at the Craftsman after all. To have the two men fed was more important than some boxes, she told them when they had protested.

In the end, they had just mailed them back to the house.

In Boston, she had been a different person.

Partly it had been because Don had been injured, severely so, and to see her son in such distress must have been devastating for her. Billy had gotten to know her a good deal better during those two weeks that she had spent there. Don and him had shared an apartment back then. They had chosen Boston as their home base simply because they had been told that most of their cases would be in the East coast- area with a focus on New England and the surrounding states; that was all fine and dandy until they turned out to be kick ass at tracking down criminals and were soon sent out on wild goose chases all over the country by their boss. Sure, they got medals and commendations and such, but they did not really see their apartment often.

Alan had not been able to come with her, he had to do a job and then attend a ceremony or conference or something with Charlie, and Billy had been secretly glad about that.

Don had been in a state, to be honest. It had been during the last quarter of their first year as partners together, and they had already built up a reputation in the Bureau and as it seemed among fugitive criminals. While on the track of their latest assignment, they had been cornered in the outskirts of Boston when they were on their way out of town.

It had been an organized assault and only an early club to the head saved Billy from the same beating that his partner received. The kick in the end was the shot to the back, luckily missing any vital organs, but leaving Don with near liver failure and a collapsed lung due to broken ribs and a tube down his throat for the first five days.

Billy had had the pleasure of calling the Craftsman and telling Margaret that her son was on the operating table as they were speaking and that maybe she could come over to see him?

She had not hesitated, simply told him that she would call him back with her arrival time and had done so ten minutes later. Only then had she wanted to know more details, taking the cordless up to the bedroom with her while she started packing.

No tears.

His strength had always been something that Don had credited his mother with, and then Billy could see, why.

At the airport she had hugged him, hard, asking him if he was okay. Theresa was already in the hospital, having arrived two hours prior. Billy was usually not the kind of guy who wanted to draw attention to himself, but this had rattled him, more deeply than he wanted to admit.

So, while Don had been in the ICU, he had been taken care of by two strong women who sent him home when he had to and took care of him. His parents had already been in decline back then, so Theresa's and Margaret's nurturing was exactly what he needed.

Well, that and for his partner to wake up.

And then, on a rainy day in September, they waned Don off the sedative and removed the breathing tube, leaving just a mask in its place. Margaret had spent the whole day sitting by his bedside, with Billy; Theresa had had to leave the day before, telling Billy to give Don her and the kids' love. They had met Don once before, and had loved him.

Margaret had sung to Don, softly, telling Billy that the Beatles and John Lennon had always worked best for her and Alan when it come to singing to Don. Charlie had not been much for music, which had then been reflected later when Don had taken to the piano, and Charlie had not.

"_You know, I always wondered, later, after we discovered Charlie's talent, if maybe there was something within Don, too."_

"_Did you ever have him tested?"_

"_Oh yes; all the doctors discovered was that his IQ was well above average and that he was a bright little boy, but they never dug further."_

"_Did you ever think to maybe try and get him to show his talents?"_

"_Oh, he never hid his talents. He just downplayed them. He was great at playing the piano, you know? I could sit with him for hours and he would just play. He was very good at reading notes, memorizing them."_

_She strokes his cheekbone._

"_During one of his recitals, the teacher announced a challenge; she wanted them to play something for the first time, off the sheet, no rehearsal, nothing."_

"_What was it?"_

"_Oh, I think it was Beethoven. I don't actually remember it. Don does, probably. He remembers everything."_

"_Yeah, I've noticed. It's a bit freaky at times."_

_She laughs._

"_Oh yes. Just imagine having him as a child. He was so curious, it was a danger to leave him by himself. Before you knew it, he'd have climbed on the highest chair to get to the books at the top shelf."_

_Margaret smiles indulgently at her unconscious son. _

"_He was always reading, you know? At first I thought he was going to become a literature professor or something."_

"_He still reads, well, whenever we have the time. But you can bet that he always has a book with him."_

"_Yes, I didn't think he had changed that much."_

_Silence reigned for a moment._

"_He played Imagine for me once, on my birthday. That was in... I think it was... Oh yes, it was in 1979. I remember because that was when Don got serious about playing the piano. He would spent his summer holidays that year either playing basketball or playing the piano. Imagine is my favourite song from John Lennon, and he must've listened to it so many times on the record player until he was able to play it by ear."_

"_Wow."_

"_Best birthday present, I can assure you. From that year on, he would always play me a song on my birthday. Still does, whenever he's home. How he practiced the pieces when he was in high school I don't know. He was almost never at home."_

"_Maybe that is his talent."_

"_Yeah. Maybe I should have been a bit more firm with him about giving up the piano. But he wanted to, told me that he had no real interest in pursuing it, that baseball was where he saw his future. So I let him."_

"_But he still played for your birthday?"_

"_And Mother's Day. And always when Charlie and Alan were not in the house. It was something just for the two of us."_

"_Why, if I may ask?"_

"_You may... Alan is as good as tone deaf, and while Charlie might know all about rhythm and tact, he has no clue about music. He's a terrible player, and he knows it. We tried to get him to play, but he just didn't take to it. He has always been about mathematics, and who were we to disagree with his teachers?"_

_There is a question that lies heavily on his tongue, that wants to burst out. Something that he knows that Don has wondered about. _

"_If Charlie had been your first child, would you have had another?"_

_She stares at him, her eyes wide with shock, aghast. Tears form in her eyes, and he feels terrible._

"_I'm sorry. I... I should not... This is... Oh God, I am so sorry."_

_The silence is deafening, it is as if neither of them dare to breathe. _

"_I had no right, really. Forgive me, Margaret... I'll just leave... You know..."_

_He makes to get out of the uncomfortable chair that is killing his back, lost in his own recriminations and self- flagellation._

_What was he thinking? Don told him that question in confidence, and never ever should he have even thought about asking it. What in heaven's name possessed him to voice this deepest concern of his partner aloud?_

"_Please, don't leave."_

_Her face is turned away from him, but he can hear the hidden tears still. She is fighting hard to regain her composure and Billy is at a loss as to why she even asked him to stay. _

"_I have wondered about this myself so often... We discovered Charlie's abilities when he was three, but in turn we hadn't tried for another child until Don was five because we wanted to give him time to grow in our love and affection. We wanted him to be at an age where he would understand why he was not the sole centre of attention anymore...."_

_She rakes her hand through her hair in a gesture so reminiscent of her son that it hurts Billy._

"_It nearly tore our family apart, Charlie's talent."_

_Margaret dabs at her eyes with a tissue, a gesture so elegant and strong despite the pain that Billy for a moment thinks that only mothers can pull it off; his mother was the same. _

"_I never talked about it with Alan, but I know that Don has thought about it."_

"_Did he ever ask you?"_

"_No. But a mother can tell these kind of thoughts. Or at least I could."_

_Billy allows a grin to touch his face._

"_Oh no, ma'am. My mother was the same."_

"_I heard about the Alzheimer's getting worse. I'm sorry."_

_She touches his hand in a comforting gesture. It breaks his heart just that little bit more that even though he caused her pain, she is now consoling him._

"_I don't know why I am even telling you this, to be honest."_

"_Please, don't answer me. You don't have to. I was way out of line."_

"_No, you deserve an answer. You asked. You will get an answer; if Don ever asks me, I will answer him, too. You're very close to my son, and you have had a strong hand in making him who he is now. For that I will always be thankful to you. And you care about him, a lot."_

"_I love him like my brother."_

"_So does he. His father, my husband and I made mistakes with him, mistakes that cost us his affection, I'm afraid. At the very least he was very resentful at times."_

_To this, Billy does not know what to say._

"_So back to your question. Honestly? I don't think I would have been up for it. The pressure was so hard, on all of us, from the get- go, from the moment that we were told that Charlie was not a normal child."_

_In a movie, this would have been the moment that Don would have revealed himself to have been awake for the last ten minutes, for having heard the gist of what they were discussing, starting a trail of angst that would be resolved at the end of the film with a disgustingly sweet ending. _

_But this is real life, and Don does not wake up until four hours later._

"Yo, Coop. You with us?"

He startles, back into the present from one second to the next, and the change is weird, shocking. There is Don, who was lying nearly comatose in a hospital bed just a split second earlier, his arm around his girlfriend, looking at him with a toothy grin that tells Billy the whole extent of cheekiness the other man can get up to.

"Sorry, while you two were canoodling, I was gathering wool."

"To make me a sweater?"

"You wish. It's gonna be sexy lingerie for your girl."

Robin snorts.

"Billy, I doubt that wool lingerie could be sexy."

He leers at her.

"Oh, I think everything would look sexy on you."

She laughs into her glass while Don is killing him with glares.

"Lay off her, man."

"Getting a bit touchy there, Eppes? Afraid I'll steal your woman?"

Clank.

The glass is put down with emphasis and all of a sudden Billy regrets his choice of words.

Luckily, any tirade that is ready to spilled from Robin's mouth, with generous amounts of humour, mind you, is thwarted when Alan finally arrives, cheery enough. The tightness around his mouth, though, tells Billy that not all is well. Don was right with his assumption that something was off.

Well, they still have the weekend to get down to the dirty.

But for now, he needs some grub.


	7. Revelations on a starry Night

**Title:** Revelations on a starry Night  
**Series:** Ulysses *6/10*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Robin- pov, Don, Alan, Billy Cooper, Don/ Robin  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary: **"It was _because_ it was in _an office_, right? Because if anyone asked, you could say that I was a desk jockey, you did not have to tell your pals from the protests that your son was a fed now, right?"

**Word Count:** 5174  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** There is an awesome beta in this world, and her name is valeriev84...

**Prompt:** # 33 Uncertainty  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 6 – Revelations on a starry Night**

Don had once told her that Alan used to be crap at cooking.

Robin finds that hard to believe now as she is spooning salad into her mouth, relishing the taste of spicy rocket lettuce with strawberries and mozzarella. Apparently, in their sons' senior year, Margaret and Alan started cooking together, often including Don in their efforts, since Margaret was worried that her two men would not be able to feed themselves when she was not there.

She would not have them live on take- outs while Charlie had the benefit of having her with him.

_She is lying in bed with Don on a lazy Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago when he tells her of the cooking and the resulting food fights of his parents. They cuddle and have fun until the rumbling of their stomachs reminds them that breakfast is something that they will have to indulge in if they want to go ahead with their plan of spending the day in bed and ignoring the outside world. _

_To her surprise, Don volunteers to make breakfast in bed, a most lavish breakfast, complete with a surprise._

_Scrambled eggs. Sausage. Bacon. Mushrooms. Baked beans. Hash browns. Half a tomato. _

_She stares at the plate, wondering what has gotten into Don that he has pulled out all the has, even made her a pot of English breakfast tea, which she knew he loathes, favouring green tea himself, with a good measure of milk and sugar, too. _

_What is going on?_

_A questioning gaze to her boyfriend finds him looking at her with a slightly apprehensive gaze and he simply puts the tray just a little bit closer onto her lap and that is when she feels it._

_Wrapped around the latest issue of the British Vogue are two plane tickets to London. In eight months. _

_She feels all tingly and warm all of a sudden. This is a commitment, a clear sign that he believes they will still be together in eight months; a better and more confirming gesture could not have been imagined. _

_He knows that she has wanted to go to London since she was a kid and now he is going to accompany her? _

_Unless the ticket is for her and her favourite sister. _

_She quickly unrolls the magazine and checks the names on the tickets._

_Donald Samuel Eppes. Robin Charlotte Brooks._

"_So, you like it?"_

"_Like? Like? Seriously? You're asking me if I like this?"_

_He nods, but the tense expression has loosened as he sees the gigantic smile forming on her face. _

"_Good."_

"_Were you worried that I wouldn't like it?"_

_Don squirms a bit, twists his hands, looks at his empty wrist, where his watch usually is. _

"_Well... I mean I took a leap of faith..."_

"_Your rabbi tell you that?"_

"_Hey!"_

"_Sorry... But, Don, this is... Wow... I love it."_

_There is a charged moment of silence between them, their eyes locking onto each other. A pin dropping could be heard. _

_It would be so easy to break the quiet, to turn them back into the relaxed state they were in mere seconds ago; but this is an important moment, and they both know it. _

_Neither knows how to handle it, though. _

_The silence stretches on, and it passes the moment of comfort. Awkwardness ensues. _

"_Well..."_

"_Yes."_

_Robin looks over at him. Don is looking flustered, his hand twitching compulsively towards his hair. _

_It is not the sexiest thing she has ever witnessed, but at this moment, she has never wanted him more. His hair is ruffled from sleep and raking his hands through it, he is dressed in boxers and a tee, his bare feet twitching in sync with his hands._

_It is endearing and so very appealing. _

Robin forces herself out of the memory before she relieves it and starts with the appropriate auditory commentary to accompany it, and forces herself back into the present.

Eppes- backyard.

Barbecue.

Cooper. Don. Alan.

All staring at her a bit amused, and she flushes, for a moment wondering that she has spoken out loud the whole time.

"What?"

"Nothing."

And the men clamp up and return to their topic of conversation, if they actually had one. Judging from the silence, no, not really.

"So, Agent Cooper-"

"Sir, I think you can call me Cooper or Billy. You don't have to call me Agent Cooper."

"Cooper, how is Fugitive Recovery these days?"

"Still lonely, Sir."

"You don't have a partner at the moment?"

"No, sir."

Billy smirks at Don who returns the smirk.

"Since Don none the Bureau pushed on me had the guts to stay. Too much to live up to."

Now they are positively beaming at each other, and Robin has to force herself to remain in the here and now, and not drift off into fantasy- land. But God, these two men, in a sexually charged atmosphere, after a rough and hard case, and they need reassurance and...

Don't get her wrong, Don is all alpha and so is Billy, and while there is a bit of homosexuality in everyone, hell, she has experimented in college, who does not, this image just... Oh wow...

In the shower, water running down their hot bodies, their lean muscled figures moulding into each other, slick, hot, sweaty and heavy...

Any cooling wipes around?

No, of course not, and if she excused herself now and left, Don would know. And maybe he would follow her then, to tease, and then he would play at being a tease and maybe then-

What is wrong with her?

One more mental shake, if she is not remotely calm after that, she will have to do something about that. Even if she has to resort to dragging Don into his old room. Right now, she would rather face the amused and abashed looks on the men's faces than this aroused state.

Okay.

Her father in underpants. Her father in socks and nothing else. Her oldest sister's husband in socks and nothing else. Billy in socks and nothing else (damn it). Her second- oldest sister's husband in socks and nothing else. Her former boss in socks and nothing else. Don in a suit. Don with his tac gear on. Don stripping. Don naked.

Don naked.

Don naked.

Don's expression the evening four days ago when she told him.

Oh God.

With a strangled moan she shoots out of the garden chair and rushes into the house, into the kitchen, to splash some water onto her face and get the heat out of her cheeks.

Where has her control gone? When did it slip off her radar where Don Eppes is concerned? Oh, she knew that she was near powerless when it came to him, but until now she has been able to keep a certain amount of decorum, to not lose it now.

"What's wrong?"

And damn the man for being able to sneak up to her like that!

"Billy? What the- What are you doing here?"

Why Billy? Why not Don? Don would be so much more convenient.

"Well, you kinda stormed away from the table... Makes you wonder what is going on."

Where is Don? She likes Billy, really, but right now? She needs Don!

"Where is Don?"

"Outside. Probably glued to the door, listening in on what we are saying."

No, he is not. Don is too much of a gentleman, and besides, even if he forgot his manners, Alan is probably sitting on him. It still begs the question, why Billy is here.

"Why you?"

"Well, we just decided that it would be me because... You know..."

Men!

"No, I don't know. What am I supposed to know?"

"Uhm... Well, Don had this weird face on him, so I kinda thought it would be best if I went in first?"

He does not sound very sure of himself.

"Billy, I need Don."

And this was the wrong thing to say because Billy's worry changes to speculation and he starts to look her up and down rather shamelessly.

"So this is how you roll? Wait for me to arrive to mortify your boyfriend in front of his father?"

Oh shit.

"That's totally fine with me. I would not be adverse to it."

If only he knew. Well, she might actually ask him. Later. Not now. Now, Don. Now.

"Don, please."

"I'll send him in."

And out he is, wagging his behind for all he is worth, and before the door to the kitchen has swung shut, it is swinging open again, this time bearing Don.

"Robin? You okay?"

"Yeah."

He is still looking good, delicious, in his casual clothes and she calms down a bit, returns to Earth, as his strong hands settle on her hips, as her face is being scrutinized by his eyes.

"You look flushed."

She slowly runs her hands up and down his forearms, can feel the slight shudder running through him at the gesture.

"I'm okay, it was nothing."

"I don't believe you."

Reassured that she is alright, his eyes crinkle in humour now as his hands slowly settle on her behind.

"I was just, I think I was having a delayed reaction."

"To what?"

"To what I told you four days ago."

His smile grows slowly, eventually showing teeth and he moves a bit closer to her so that their bodies are in contact now.

"Delayed reaction? How would you have reacted had you not had one?"

Now her hands are running down his back and cup his bottom.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

She has calmed now, can even joke about what just happened, what just rattled her.

"Oh yes, I would. Very much so. Why did you have to do that now? Why not after Billy went home or when we are home? Where is Billy staying anyways?"

"I volunteered your guest room. "

He groans and lets his head fall forward until it rest on her left collarbone. She moves one hand up to run through his thick dark hair.

"Why? He could stay in my old room here at the house."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

He considers.

"Yeah, you're right. I think they have stuff to talk about before they could co- exist in the same house for the night."

"Shall we go back outside?"

"Well, they could always sort out their differences now since we are both inside... And didn't you want to... You know?"

"Not here. Later."

"Promise?"

"Yup."

"Cool. Just gimme a sec."

_He is standing in the kitchen, making her a cup of tea as it has become his ritual after dinner. She never pegged him for someone who likes to drink tea, so when she discovered his collection of green and white tea, she was quite surprised. _

_And even more surprised when he managed to suck her in, to make her appreciate tea on a more sophisticated level than the English Breakfast Tea she loves. _

_They had dinner at the Italian place around the corner from his apartment, a quaint little restaurant, after she picked him up from the office, finally forcing him to abandon the open case that was getting nowhere. Now he is making them their by now customary cup of tea and she is sorting through his CD collection._

_Not for the first time she has to smile at the way his CDs are ordered. By name and year of release and of course by genre. The same with his books while his clothes are all stacked or hung according to colour. _

_Tonight she is in the mood for something sappy, romantic. So she pays no heed to Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Rolling Stones and White Stripes when her eyes rest on a CD she had never thought Don Eppes would own._

_Barbra Streisand – The Essential Barbra Streisand_

_Where did that one come from? For a moment she is distracted from her search for the perfect song by the amount of teasing material that comes to mind. She pulls the CD out of curiosity when the first track catches her eye._

_Woman in Love._

_Well, don't you know it? The perfect song. Or maybe something different. Maybe he has this CD but hates it? _

"_Hey, what you in the mood for?"_

"_Don't care. You pick!"_

_Okay, now the field is wide open. Maybe no Streisand but... She stands in front of his CD- collection and cannot pick one. There are too many possibilities. Don Eppes has a surprising amount of potentially romantic music._

"_Nothing?"_

_He has come up behind her with two cups of tea in his hand. She takes one cup from him, relishing the first sip._

"_I love you."_

_This was not the way she wanted to say it, but it just came out, and now she is glad that it did. She hates those fluffy scenes in movies when a situation warrants for such a statement. Yet, when he handed her the tickets, or even before when he did so many things, like taking her out whenever and wherever she wanted, giving her countless massages, listening to her rant and so on and so on, it never seemed right._

_And now, in a mundane and comfortable moment of domesticity, she wants to say it._

_Because it is the only situation that she could have imagined blurting this out. _

_Don just beams at her, his teeth nearly blinding her in the semi- darkness of the living room and then kisses her with a fire that makes her weak in the knees. She knows he is not big on verbally expressing his emotions, and she is fine with that. _

_His actions speak louder than words. _

_Once the kiss ends, with both of them breathing heavily, he turns away briefly, looking at the CDs for a moment before picking one out and putting it into the system. He forwards to the right track and when she hears the opening beats, she has to grin madly at the fact that Don owns a Beyonce- CD and then she just gets lost in his eyes as he walks towards he, hugs her to him closely and starts to sway softly to the rhythm. _

_Halo._

_And then the surroundings and the song start to fade and all she is aware of is him._

She is torn back to the present when he moves away from her and leans against the kitchen sink.

"What'cha thinking about?"

"Not you!"

She could move behind him and start to tickle him in his places, drive him mad, but she leaves it for now. The fire has abated, the flame still simmering but it will have to do for now. So she just kisses him on the nape before moving outside again.

"I'll be out in a sec, tell them I had to go to the toilet or something."

"Don, I don't think it matters what I say, they'll know."

"Ah damn it."

She laughs softly at his playfully despairing tone and then leaves the kitchen and heads back outside.

Billy and Alan are sitting at the table, not really speaking. The level of tension is so high she would love to run back into the house and take off with Don, but at the same time cannot help but berate herself for leaving the two men alone.

She knows they do not get along particularly well but this just cannot be happening. Alan called Billy, so that means that he should be able to mend bridges.

Whatever happened between those two?

"Whatever happened between the two of you that you cannot talk to each other?"

"Oh, we can talk. We talked when I called Agent Cooper."

Uh- oh. Alan is calling Billy Agent Cooper again. It could only be worse if he called him Special Agent Cooper.

She has to get into lawyer- mode apparently, in order to get this right. Don is probably not the best negotiator for this, with his loyalties torn between Billy and his father. So it is up to her to mediate.

"Okay, while we are here, we will talk this out."

Both Alan and Billy look equally scandalized. Alan is the first one to voice his opinion.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course!"

"Robin, I don't think this is a good idea."

"Oh shush, Billy. You will talk this through. If we want to make it through this weekend alive, you guys will have to resolve your issues."

"What is going on?"

Don has come back out into the garden.

"Are we ever actually gonna eat or is the meat for decoration?"

She smiles sweetly up at him.

"Why don't you man the grill and those two _will talk._"

She puts extra emphasis on the last two words to signal that neither Alan nor Billy will get out of this. Don, used to her being- in- charge- persona, does not say a thing but starts to master the barbecue, listening in with a curious ear.

This concerns him as much, if not even more, as the other two men.

"I feel as we are at Dr Phil or something like that. Oprah or shit like that."

Don snorts at Billy's inelegant comment.

"Well, I feel as if I am in kindergarten, running interference between two toddlers. Seriously."

More snorting from Don, this time, she is sure, at her use of 'seriously'. She picked it up when she started watching Grey's Anatomy and used it to drive him up the wall, since he is not the biggest fan of that word. Now, it is a kind of running joke between them, something to loosen tension, and this, again, shows her just how far they have come.

But now back to the issue at hand.

"What it is that makes you dislike each other so much?"

Silence. They are just glowering at each other. It is a battle of wills, of who is going to cave first, and neither her nor Don can do anything about the impending explosion.

"He took our son away from us."

She can practically feel Don forcing himself to refrain from saying anything.

"I did not do that!"

"He would not call for weeks on end, worrying us to death! And whenever we saw him, he was hurt in some way. Scratches, bruises or when he was in hospital? He got beaten up and shot and stabbed and-"

"Dad! I get beaten up, stabbed and shot in LA, too. And in Albuquerque. It comes with the job! That is not Coop's fault!"

"Donnie, you changed when you were with him! That is nothing that I can approve of. You became distant. We worried! Your mother was afraid to watch the news because there might be news of FBI- agents killed. Afraid that it might be you!"

"Did you have that little faith in my abilities? In my partner? That you actually believed that I would get killed that easily?"

There is an underlying well- hidden hurt in Don's voice, but Robin knows that Alan and Billy can pick up on it, too.

"Mr Eppes, I can assure you, we are highly trained, and no- one is sent into Fugitive Recovery if he isn't deemed fit for the task."

"He had a nice desk job in Detroit."

"I nearly died of boredom there! My boss was an ass and would have me get coffee and staple documents. That was all that I did all day! You think I was happy? Seriously?!"

None of the humour of his use of the word remains. They are laying it all out on the table now. Or at least as much as any of them can stomach for the night.

"At least it was safe. It was in an office."

Don sees right through his father.

"It was _because_ it was in _an office_, right? Because if anyone asked, you could say that I was a desk jockey, you did not have to tell your pals from the protests that your son was a fed now, right?"

Alan says nothing, just stares at his son, who does not back down.

"Are you that ashamed of me?"

"No, never!"

Too quick. They all know it.

"I mean, I was not happy with your career choice. You could have gone on to law school after college or maybe become a coach after baseball. There were possibilities, other than becoming a fed or a police officer."

Don looks away for a moment, swallowing visibly.

"But you said that I was a born cop."

"And I mean that. But Donnie, I was not like that back in your man hunting days."

"What made you change your mind?"

"More like who."

"Mom?"

Alan only nods.

"She reminded me of the toy gun. Of how you always protected the smaller kids in school. How you always wanted to look for evil guys and the monsters under Charlie's bed, how you promised him to chase them down if they even thought about attacking him. It was the small bits."

The grill has been abandoned by now and Robin reaches over to nibble on a piece of bread, if she does not want to starve. Billy, momentarily forgotten, follows her example, and they catch each other's eyes, signalising that everything is okay, still. The two other men need to talk this through more than Alan and Billy need to sort out their issues.

"Donnie, I know I was harsh in the beginning, when you told us... But believe me, I never hated you. It was fear. I was just afraid for you. That you would get hurt."

"Yeah, but, Dad, none of the injuries I got were Billy's fault. Usually he even prevented me from worse ones."

Now the attention is back on Billy and the redhead squirms a bit uncomfortable.

"If it was not for him, I might actually be dead now."

If Don wanted to make a statement that brought Alan up short, he just succeeded.

"That true?"

Helplessly, lost, Alan looks to Billy for confirmation.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh God."

The two younger men find the grass very interesting all of a sudden, as Alan's gaze switches between his son and his son's former partner.

"And if it was not for your son, I would be dead, too, sir."

Billy's voice is respectful, but carries a force that brings his point across. They were just looking out for each other, and this is what partners do. On the job or in private life.

"So, I guess I owe you an apology?"

"No, sir."

"Why?"

"I wasn't doing it out of obligation- I was doing it because I wanted to. That guy over there, he's like my little brother. So I did what every big brother does, just like Don did for Charlie. That doesn't need to be thanked for. It's a natural thing."

Billy stands up, stretching.

"Where's the toilet?"

"Off the kitchen to the left."

He leaves and silence reigns again. Don has turned back to the grill, firing it up.

"Your mother always said that you would end up in law enforcement. She said that you were just wired that way. Even with the baseball, she was so sure that you would turn to the law at some point."

The words come out of the blue and both Don and Robin watch Alan in the semi- darkness, stunned.

"We had this big argument when you guys were in senior year. It was before we decided that she would go to Princeton with Charlie. You had just gotten accepted to Dartmouth, and we were figuring out how to make do. There was still the Stanford- offer for Charlie, and we were considering it because we didn't want to be apart so much-"

"You were thinking about divorce!"

Don's forceful voice stops Alan short.

"You had so many problems when we were in high school. Charlie might not have noticed, but I did, Dad."

"We didn't want to bother you with it."

"Well, I was not off in my own world all the time, so I saw that you were barely talking. And that you were fighting."

"You noticed that?"

"Why do you think I was okay with Charlie waiting for me during practice all of a sudden? Or taking him out for walks? Geez."

"Your mother knew you knew."

"Well, it's not like you were very secretive about it!"

Billy has returned but neither Alan nor Don take note of him. He throws Robin a sly glance and then grabs more bread, showing her the butter he nicked from the fridge. She grins and hands him her roll.

"I remember this one night, you were eight- years- old, playing Beethoven I think it was, when your mother wanted you to attend an academy of music because she thought that you had a talent that should be developed. And really, even the Petri dish said so."

Don laughs out loud at Alan calling the loathed teacher by the nickname the brothers gave her.

"And did you send him to an academy?"

Alan looks away at her question, clearly uncomfortable. The tension has risen up a notch, so tangible you could grab it and bundle it up. Oh, how much Robin would like to do so right now, just hide the tension away in a garbage bag and heave it over to the neighbour's yard.

They all just know that what is going to come out of Alan's mouth is going to be painful.

"Yeah, why did you not, Dad? You knew that I actually liked playing the piano."

"I know, you would spend hours playing that thing. And you were good. Really good."

For a split second, the atmosphere is relaxed, Alan even grinning slightly.

"You could find Donnie in two places back then. Either at the piano or right here, throwing the ball and practicing his pitches."

"So why no academy?"

Silence. A very long silence. Bar the sizzling of the meat on the grill, nothing.

"Come on, Dad."

"Because we decided that Charlie's education was more important. His ability was a given, while you we were just making a guess. You were good, but there was no guarantee that it was going to take off... And a couple of years later you abandoned the piano anyways, so it was the right decision, in a way."

Alan chances a look at Don's face, which is stormy now.

"Or not. But it was a financial question, Donnie. We had to pick."

Don is visibly seething by now, something that he rarely lets himself be, the control freak reigning him in.

"You wanna know why I stopped?"

Of course Alan wants to know, Billy and her want to know, but at the same time, Robin wants to shield him from the pain this is inflicting on him. He is inflicting it on himself by dragging this up again. She knows that he actually loved playing the piano, and has long ago resolved to buy him one when they ever move in together. The best way to get him to relax is to draw a bath and then put on some piano music, Beethoven or Chopin, and get into the hot tub with him.

He might not be a second Barenboim or might not have been a _wunderkind_, but should he not have gotten the chance to develop his talent?

"Ask me, dad. Ask me why I stopped."

"Why, Donnie?"

This is hurting both of them so much.

"Because Charlie started playing, too, and all of a sudden everybody only cared about him. Mom used to love to sit with me and play with me, but when Charlie started, it was all about him again. Because it could not be that the prodigy could not play the piano. He had to excel at everything! Forget about his dopey older brother, he played baseball, so what would he know? Charlie had absolutely no sense of rhythm, still doesn't, but everybody was on about him playing, and how he would develop if he was just given the right chance. The Petri dish recommended sending him to an academy, right? So yeah, piano was my domain, until he started playing, too. So that's why I stopped, Dad. Because aside from baseball, piano was the one other thing I had for myself, and now it was Charlie's, too, and I was in the background again."

"Oh, Donnie."

"I was a jock. You know why? Because I wanted to have my own niche, where Charlie could not interfere. It was my thing. He wanted to play baseball, too, but luckily Mom stopped him. Because then I would not have had anything. So I was a jock, he was the nerd. And you know the funny thing?"

He nearly sneers at his father.

"It was still not me. Because I was not a jock. I just played a role, again. The FBI gave me the chance to be myself; this was what I knew I was gonna be good at."

"And you are. I see that now. It took me a while, but Donnie..."

"Dad, just... Mom understood, but then sometimes she did not. She knew that I wanted my own space and yet she forced Charlie on me at times. And so did you."

"Charlie would not let go of us because of the piano. He wanted to play it because you did. He wanted to play baseball because you did."

"Oh fuck, Dad. Not this again."

"Donnie, do you have any idea how great you were as a big brother?"

"Dad-"

"There is a reason why you were Charlie's hero. You were the best big brother one could have wished for. And he wanted so much to be like you."

"Oh jeez."

Don is raking his hands repeatedly through his hair, his distress obvious.

"It was not that we wanted to undermine you. It was just that Charlie wanted to do everything that you did."

"And yet, the focus was always on him."

"That I have no excuses for. And I know that your mother was sorry for that, too. It's just that he always seemed more fragile when compared to you."

"And guess why that was."

Don's voice is sharp and biting now.

Equally sharp is the smell of the burning meat that they all forgot about in the heat of the moment.

In a sudden bustle of activity they break the quiet, sort out who wants what from the grill and then sit down to finally eat.

No conversation is made, and it is for the better. They are all still recovering from the results of what just went on a couple of minutes ago.

Robin reaches over under the table and squeezes Don's thigh. He covers her hand and holds it tight.

She will have to eat dinner with one hand, but since she picked a sausage she will manage.

She knows that the contact is grounding him at the moment, and there is nothing she would rather do right now.


	8. Losing Dinner is not an Option

**Title:** Losing Dinner is not an Option  
**Series:** Ulysses *7/12*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Alan- pov, Don, Robin, Billy Cooper, Don/ Robin, minor Alan/ Margaret  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary: **Alan looks over at Billy, at the man he has so long blamed for Don's absence from his life.

Now he knows better, he knows that he was at fault too, and that Charlie always played a role while Don's communication with his family happened mainly through his mother.

**Word Count:** 5499  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** Sorry for the delay, but I had to spontaneously accompany my mother on a class trip as an accompanying teacher, as she is pretty sick at the moment and did not feel well enough to handle the rambunctious bunch of students on her own (well, there was a second teacher, too, but I was more than happy to tag along...) South Tyrol in the summer is just gorgeous!

A million tons of thanks as always go to valeriev84...

**Prompt:** # 67 Reservations  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 7 – Losing Dinner is not an Option**

There once was a time back in the day, when Donnie and Charlie were still small children, when Margaret and he tried for a third child. They felt that their love was strong enough that they could focus on a third baby while raising two sons who were everything short of rambunctious.

That was shortly before Charlie started sprouting stuff with numbers and they realized that there was something about their child that would warrant a lot of attention.

Attention that was lost on Donnie, unfortunately.

Looking at his sons now, he cannot help but wonder what would have happened if they had bestowed the same amount of attention on Donnie as they did on Charlie; if they had given Don the time to develop his piano skills, how he might have turned out.

Maybe he would have become a famous pianist.

Maybe he would have still become an FBI- agent.

There is no way to know for sure, and Alan has never been one to wonder about the what ifs. Life is what is thrown at you, and it is up to you to deal with any obstacles thrown in your path.

There was a time when he admittedly was ashamed of what his son did.

It felt like such a kick in the face when Don stood in the living room and told his parents that he had applied to the FBI and had been accepted. He never talked to them about it, just came out to plainly state that he would change careers.

A career that defied everything that Alan had tried to teach his son.

It had been up to Margaret to console him, to calm him down.

_Donnie is upstairs, showering off the grime of his day of travelling. Charlie is probably in the garage, avoiding his brother, as usual. _

_Margaret is sitting beside him on the sofa, watching him with attentive eyes. He knows she does not agree with him, and from the tense posture he figures that she is actually quite mad at him. _

_That just figures._

_It has always been this way, ironically enough. _

_Margaret might be off with Charlie most of the time, but she has always been the one who has understood Don the best. They have the same mind set, the same way of thinking. So it does not come as a surprise to him that she is once again taking his side._

"_He needs something new, Alan."_

"_He couldn't have picked something else?"_

"_What else?"_

"_The law! What the hell did he do his BA in if he does not put it to good use? He can still go to law school. Why this?"_

"_Because he needs something that's completely different from what we do. He wants to do his own thing."_

_He stares off into nothing, rage boiling inside of him. It is an emotion he never would have thought himself capable of when it comes to his sons. _

_Rage._

_This is something reserved for child molesters, mass murderers, government people who do not respect democracy. _

_Oh God, Don will have to face the scum of the earth, he will have to deal with paedophiles, he will chase killers._

_He rubs his hand over his face. _

"_He's still so young."_

_Margaret snorts._

"_Alan, Donnie hasn't been young since he went to baseball camp and we spend all our time with Charlie because we just had to work out how to improve his skills the best. He became independent and self- reliant while we were babying Charlie. He grew up early."_

_She smiles wistfully at the picture on the coffee table, her and the boys, grinning widely. It was taken when Donnie had just started third grade. _

_So small and precious. _

_The year after, they had sent Donnie off to camp and focused completely on Charlie. That was when they forgot about Don in a way. _

_But he made it so easy for them, and Alan cannot help himself but be angry about this, too. _

_Had Donnie coped worse, had he moaned and whinged and cried and begged, they might have noticed, but he just learned how to do things himself. They became so dependent on him being able to sort himself out that it is pathetic in retrospect. He did his homework by himself, and he was an excellent student, bar two subjects, physics and math, rarely had to ask for his parents' help (though he has wondered if maybe Don's lack of academic success in the two subjects was more a rebellion than anything else)._

_Charlie was always in need of attention. _

_As tumultuous as Donnie's birth had been, he had become a quiet and self- assured boy who grew into a young man with a lot of dislike for his little brother, which was not unwarranted. _

"_Did we do that much wrong with him?"_

"_Nah, you did fine."_

_He has been lost in thought, he has not heard Don come down the stairs. He looks at his son and for the first time sees Don, the man, instead of Donnie, the boy. He is tall enough, with an athlete's build, all lean and sinewy, his hair cropped short and muscles bulging under the tight shirt he is wearing. _

_This is not his little boy anymore. Now, the veil has been lifted. Sometime between him singing Donnie to sleep when he was a child and now, his son has grown up. Oh, he has the collector's card from his pro days, that are now over, apparently, but it has not really sunk in until now._

_Now that Donnie, or Don, no, he will always be Donnie to him, has made a decision that he would not have seen coming if it had hit him on the head. _

"_And yet here you are, becoming a fed."_

_Donnie is leaning against the wall, a cup of tea in his hands, the spoon in his mouth in a very familiar lopsided position. They never managed to cure him of his oral fixation._

"_Yeah, so?"_

"_Did you ever hear anything I ever told you?"_

"_Every word."_

"_And?"_

"_And the FBI back then was different from how it is now."_

"_Donnie, they attacked us, they did things that were not ethical. They are wrong, their doings are wrong."_

"_Oh, come on, Dad! This is bull! You're still holding on to what happened about two decades ago. Things have changed. The world has changed. And I believe that I can help with the change."_

"_But could you not have become a lawyer like your mother?"_

"_Only to be then compared to her all the time? No offense, Mom."_

_Margaret smiles at him, indulgently._

"_None taken, Don. And he is right, Alan."_

_Before giving birth to Don, Margaret had been a rising star , with a promising career ahead of her. Her boss even said that she would make it to the Supreme Court as a judge one day, and she might have accomplished that goal had Charlie's math not intervened. _

_It all seems to come back to Charlie. _

_But is not his fault, he did not ask to be born with it. How can he lay blame on his son when he did not have any influence on his gift?_

"_It's just... It's the FBI for crying out loud. The FBI!"_

"_Yes, and so what? I never would have made it into the CIA, thanks to your past!"_

"_Why not LAPD? Why the feds? Donnie, please, explain that to me!"_

"_Because I don't just want to fight crime on a local level, I want to protect the United States. I love LA, but I want to get away from it. I need to get away from it."_

"_But you already were away from us for years. First college, and then the pros. Were you not happy with the baseball? I thought it was what you wanted? What you worked towards?"_

"_Yeah, but it never really fulfilled me. This is something that I just know that I'll be good at."_

"_Forgive me, but I don't see it. Your intelligence is wasted there. Your abilities."_

"_Don't be ridiculous!"_

_Never before has one of his sons scoffed at him bar that one time that he tried to explain something to a seven- year- old Charlie and the boy had told him that he had totally gotten it wrong. _

"_Dad, seriously. I know I'll be good at it. And do you think that the feds are all just stupid?"_

"_Yes! Otherwise they wouldn't have done what they did!"_

"_Everybody makes bad decisions, nobody is perfect. You learn from your mistakes, improve after that. That's how it works!"_

_He has a bad feeling about this, not to mention this tearing at his stomach at the thought that he seemed to have failed his son in teaching him his values. _

"_You're a flower child, Donnie."_

_It is a last bid._

"_That time is over, Dad. I'm not that baby anymore, I'm me, just in case you might not have noticed."_

_The last part is said with a disdain that is quite unlike Don, who is usually so affable, friendly and easy- going._

"_I'm just... I'm disappointed."_

_A long moment of tense silence. Then Don pushes off the wall, shrugs in a way that tells Alan that his son is removing himself from the family._

"_Nothing I can do about it. My decision is made. Try to accept it."_

_Then he leaves, without another glance. Just turns and goes out into the garden, or maybe the garage. Alan does not pay that any heed. _

_What just happened?_

What did go wrong with them that night?

Later, before they went to bed, Margaret showed him Donnie's silver six- shooter, reminded him of when he had always played Cops and Robbers and had always been the cop.

She told him that this was his destiny.

Yet he could not accept that, could not come to terms with the fact that his son, his precious son, was going to be running around, shooting people. And that he was going to enjoy his job.

They had been at his graduation ceremony, and he had seen how Don had beamed.

Then came Detroit and he thought everything might just turn out alright.

Until Fugitive Recovery.

That was when they really lost their son, and when they got him back, he was a different man. Not a bad man, a better man actually, but not their son anymore. Or his son. Margaret had not batted an eyelash, just taken the change in stride. It had been a gradual transformation, and while Don had admittedly blossomed, he was still blind to it.

Alan looks over at Billy, at the man he has so long blamed for Don's absence from his life.

Now he knows better, he knows that he was at fault too, and that Charlie always played a role while Don's communication with his family happened mainly through his mother.

"The food is excellent, Mr Eppes."

He told him that he should call him Alan, but just like he is still calling him Agent Cooper, the other man calls him Mr Eppes.

"Thank you. The marinade is a recipe from my wife."

"Don always told me about her cooking, very unfair when you're living off disgusting stuff that you don't want to know the origins off."

"Ah, you knew I only did it to spice up the food. The junk we ate needed to be pimped."

The two men grin at each other and Alan wants to know more about this, more about their stake- outs, the food, he wants to know about everything. All he knows are tidbits that Don told when writing or calling.

Alan suspects that the majority was heavily edited and that his son left out what was most likely to cause his parents heart attacks. He still remembers the nausea he felt when Cooper rang their house to tell them about Don's injuries. Margaret had packed her bags immediately. He had been unable to attend, tending to Charlie and accompanying him to another award ceremony.

Margaret called him each evening and they talked, but it just was not the same. He had planned to fly down after the awards, but she had told him not to, that it was enough for Don to have his mother around to care for him. Alan always suspected that in a way Don had relished the fact that he had his mother to himself for a bit.

Just him and his mom, something that had not happened after the discovery of Charlie's genius.

His son had eventually turned his back on Fugitive Recovery and Alan knew that it was in large part due to Don giving in to their nagging and also the fact that his son needed steadiness in his life, needed to have a certain routine in place. FR was too unpredictable, and for someone who had such tight control over his actions, it must have been uncomfortable. At least that is what he assumes.

He never asked Don directly.

Maybe now is the time. Or not. Don's control issues are a known fact but nothing that is ever said about it.

"I remember this one time when Mom rang me because you, Dad, had screwed up a roast and called her to complain. She told me to come to LA the next possible chance and show you how to do it."

Don's grin is wide and teasing, and Alan has to grin back. There are many a fond memory of his attempts at cooking the first year when he was alone at the house. Don had been away at Berkeley, Charlie and Margaret were in Princeton and he was very much on his own. It had not been that bad after adjusting to it, and he lived from visit to visit, to be honest; but the cooking was an issue. Don had taken to it quite quickly, as he did to nearly everything, and became the 'chef' of the dorm, while he more often than not had to ring Margaret to ask what he had done wrong.

Very embarrassing, but also a way to reconnect with her.

"You were a show- off. Always better at the whole thing than me. Not very fair to show up your old man."

"Pff. Come on, Dad, how hard is it to screw up boiling pasta? I mean, you boil the water, put the pasta in, wait for it. You are the only one I know who ever burnt pasta."

Snickers from Billy and Robin. Alan would blush if he did not rejoice in this moment. All the angst aside, this is what he wanted when he rang Billy. A way to rediscover the lighter side in Don, which has been hidden from view too much for the last couple of months.

"Oh no, wait. Charlie is actually worse than you. I think the waffles he made for us last year were the only thing he actually ever managed to make on the first go."

Billy chortles at this.

"Hard to imagine. You'd think he'd have the perfect formula all figured out."

There is an underlying tension in the other man's voice and Alan can feel the mood darken just a tiny bit again. There are so many unresolved issues between Don and Charlie still, and he knows, just _knows_, that Billy has been privy to emotions from Don that neither he nor Margaret ever really knew about. Probably a good thing, but Don and Charlie are his sons, and he never wanted there to be this weird thing between them.

But it did happen, and it caused him and Margaret more than their fair share of anxiety over it.

"You'd think so, but no, actually. Charlie would forget about the water and it would boil over, or he would not set the timer, all the tiny things. The theory he knew by heart and could recite the recipes just fine but when it came to the execution, the results were quite poor."

"So Amita's the cook then?"

"Eh, not really. They just have Dad wait on them."

Laughter from the younger ones, and he has to crack a smile. It is true in a way. He has never seen Amita cook, and she more than freely admits that she is very bad at it.

"Maybe that's another reason why they get along so well."

Robin swallows a piece of her steak.

"Their joined inability to cook?"

Don nods and pierces salad on his fork.

"Yup."

Said so with a full mouth and there is no way that Alan can let that one just pass by.

"Donnie, don't speak with your mouth full."

His only response is a groan that he knows all too well. The accompanying whinge, too.

"Daaaaad. Come on. I'm not a kid anymore."

"And yet you disregard what your mother and me tried to teach you."

More groaning, this time with added head- shaking.

"So how did you survive then, Mr Eppes?"

"Oh, it got better eventually. Trial and error became good friends of mine."

"Or Mom rang his friends and asked them to invite him for dinner."

"Ah, the old version of take- out?"

"Yes, but I gave him lessons whenever I was home from college."

Now he has to butt in before he comes over as totally incompetent. Well, he was, but he just took his sweet time improving.

"Or your mother instructed me on the phone. Besides, the best things take their time."

"Kinda like wine, right, Dad? The older and longer the better?"

Don's grin is wide and carefree and for that reason alone Alan is willing to let the remark slide and just feints being indignant.

"_Did you manage to burn dinner again?"_

"_No, it went fine. I'm proud of it, actually. Managed to make the pasta and the sauce, and nothing burnt. You'll be so proud when you come next month."_

"_So this is what we'll have to eat? When's Don coming?"_

"_Haha. I might be able to whip up something else by then. Stan and Sarah are coming over tomorrow and we'll cook together. Sarah said she'd give me pointers."_

"_What're you making?"_

"_Surprise."_

"_Oh, I like surprises."_

_The delight is evident in her voice and Alan feels a slight tightening in his stomach. It has been too long since there has been any kind of banter between them. The distance, loathed as it is, has helped them. Of course, it would have been better if Charlie had been older and able to go to college alone, but he has played the 'what if'- game too many times to content himself with the vague answers he gets. _

_They knew that life would be hard, but neither had anticipated how hard, after that first visit with the child psychologist. They all had suffered, their relationship and Don the most. Charlie had been mostly oblivious to it, hiding in his world of math. Human interaction had been difficult for him, always. His world was the world of adults, and the carefree world of childhood was experienced not enough. Maybe they had done wrong in that aspect in his life, but the tutors, professors and psychologists had always told them that it was best to hone his skills. _

_They absolutely had to always keep him occupied with mathematics. Maybe if they had given him more free time, he might have evolved in a different way, maybe he and Don would not be the way they were now._

_Maybe they would be brothers now, not just people who had the same parents. _

"_Alan?"_

_Oh, Margaret. He looks at the phone for a moment, having forgotten that he was still holding the receiver in his hands._

"_Sorry, I drifted off."_

"_What are we going to do with them?"_

_So he has not been the only one. He knows that Margaret worries too. The atmosphere between their sons has become more and more charged in the last couple of years and the fight they had in the backyard before prom had only been one instance. _

"_I don't know what to do. Has Charlie said anything?"_

"_No. All he talks about is this paper that he wants to show that professor from CalSci who recommended him for that camp a couple of years back."_

"_Oh, Professor Hornburger, right? That's why he called the other day. He said he wanted to confirm something with Charlie. I gave him your number."_

"_Well, he'll call."_

"_Has Don said anything?"_

_Margaret calls him twice a week, Alan once a week. But their close- lipped son talks to him even less than he talks to his mother. _

"_He asked about Charlie. Said he's looking forward to seeing all of us again."_

"_That's good, right?"_

_A heavy sigh, and he wants to hug her so badly right now._

"_Yes, I suppose."_

"_Oh darling."_

_He hates this situation that has torn their family apart. Yes, the distance was good for him and Margaret, as they actually talk now, not just exist and play scenes rehearsed over years. _

"_I can't wait to see you again, Margaret."_

"_Me, neither."_

"_Distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?"_

_She sighs._

"_Yes. Let's hope the boys'll be affected, too."_

_They had Charlie tested for Asperger's Syndrome, but the doctor they went to had assured them that Charlie was fine, just in the wrong environment. Asked for advice, the good doctor had been unable to give a good answer. Charlie apparently had to be where he was because otherwise his genius would wither away and die. Very dramatic, of course, but the doctor considered it the only way they would be able to understand the matter. _

_Scientific benefits could be drawn from Charlie's knowledge, thus his ability needed to be enhanced and his education could not be stopped for something as childish as actual child's play. _

_So what they had now was a 14- year- old prodigy who could talk circles around people when it came to math but was clueless as to how to actually be a teenager. Any help from Don was refused, and his oldest son had tried and tried, especially after Charlie had been enrolled in the same high school as he. _

"_You think we should've put them in different high schools?"_

"_Oh, Alan, not this again. We agreed that Charlie needed to attend a school close to home."_

"_Yeah, but what about Don? He could've gone to another school."_

_They had never actually considered that angle, which shows Alan now that they apparently really did not pay that much attention to Don, something that he had accused them of before. _

"_There is nothing we can do to change that now."_

"_Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Charlie had been born first?"_

_There is that conversation from a couple of years back that Alan cannot forget. It was one of the few arguments that Don and he ever had, and the only one where Don stormed out of the house. He had not talked to him for days after that, the hurt had sat that deep. _

"_Oh God."_

_He can hear Margaret swallow._

"_Of course I have."_

_He can imagine her sitting in the lounge chair she had told him about, the phone beside her, twisting the cord around her fingers in a manner reminiscent of Don, who does the same thing when chatting. _

"_Would you have wanted a second child?"_

"_I don't know."_

_She is lying, he knows it, and he knows that she knows that he does too. He could call her on it, get her to confess, but he does not have the heart for it. The tangible connection they have forged could so easily be destroyed by something careless now. _

"_Me, neither."_

_A lie too, and again, they are both aware of it. _

Some truths are too painful to be spoken out loud, and he never actually got an answer to his question, even though he knows what Margaret's would have been. Don had never again brought that question up and he is wondering now if his son is still thinking about it.

"Oh wow, I'm stuffed."

Cooper sits back and pats his stomach.

"This was excellent, Mr Eppes."

"Yeah, Alan, it was great."

Don just nods and shovels more salad into his mouth. He does not want another talking to from his father about speaking with his mouth full.

"Great, then you can clear the table and do the dishes."

"You got dessert, Dad?"

Of course he has. Homemade ice- cream and a fruit salad in the fridge.

"Check the fridge and the freezer."

"Cool."

He needs to talk to Don, and he needs to do it now. There is no way he can just push away that conversation, he has done so for too many years now. Yes, they are men, and yes, they do not talk about emotions and such, but there are some conversations that are too important to be ignored, and this is one of them.

So he follows the three younger people into the house after a moment and observes them as they banter and put the plates and cutlery in the dishwasher. He is loathe to destroy that. Maybe the conversation can be put on hold a day or week longer. It is not like they can change the outcom now.

"Anything we can get you, Dad?"

Donnie has seen him in the doorway and now three sets of eyes are looking at him.

"Actually, I'll bring the dessert out. You can wait in the garden."

"You sure, Alan?"

"Yes, get out. Enjoy the evening."

"I'll give you a hand, Dad."

"No no no, that's fine, Donnie, I'll manage."

"What, you want to bring out the two bowls and then the dessert bowls and cutlery? And maybe tea and coffee?"

Don leaves the kitchen and yells out into the garden if Robin and Cooper want tea or coffee while Alan gathers the bowls and spoons.

"You want tea or coffee, Dad?"

"Tea. Something herbal."

Anything stronger and his nerves just might kill him; and of course Don picks up on it. No- one can ever claim that Don is not astute.

"You okay?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?"

"You've been off all evening."

Don prepares the cups while the water boils.

"Still don't like Coop, huh?"

"It's not him. I invited him after all."

"Yeah, for me."

"So?"

"I think it's great."

Now Don is beaming at him, big smile, crinkly eyes, teeth on display.

"Thanks, really, Dad."

Now, or he will never work up the nerve again, even if he is going to ruin the rest of the evening.

"Remember that fight we had when you were about sixteen?"

The smile is gone and the crinkles around the eyes are now more inquisitive than amused (that his son's crinkles can actually change according to mood is something that Alan will never be able to figure out).

"What?"

"You complained to me about Charlie's presence at training and how he was annoying you and then you asked if-"

"- you'd have had a second son if Charlie had been the firstborn."

Realization is dawning on him.

"Why now, Dad? What brought this on?"

"It's been something I've been wondering about, myself."

"Did Mom ever?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"We never actually talked about it."

"But you know."

Damn his son for picking up on his every emotion. Where Don learned how to read the people around him like books, Alan will never know, but it is something that he does not always like.

In moments like this, he most certainly hates this trait.

"I knew your mother very well."

"But you never talked about it?"

"Never answered it. Never. That was not an option. We had two sons that we both loved. To question ourselves or to think about what might have been, that just was not good for us. For the relationship... Just no."

"What would you have answered if I had pressed you?"

He started this, but now he does not want to continue. This was a mistake, and why could he not have foreseen this?

Because he can be quite stupid at times. This is a prime example.

"Donnie..."

"No, Dad, you brought it up."

Don is leaning against the fridge in a posture reminiscent of back then, and for a moment Alan thinks that he is doing this in memory of that moment, to relive it, but then again, probably not. Don has the tendency to lean against the nearest available surface. It is probably an unconscious habit.

But then again, you never really know with him.

"You going to answer me?"

It is a challenge, and his son's stance is now rigid, gone is the lazy slouching from seconds before.

He cannot answer this question. His tongue is tied, his mouth dry. Vaguely he notices that the kettle has started to beep, signalling that the water is done, but neither he nor Don react, they are caught in each other's gaze, neither willing to budge.

"I don't think it would've been a good idea."

There, it is out. And he has rarely felt worse. The look on Don's face is closed off, the blinds going down right before his eyes, and he has hurt his son again; has hurt both of them, actually.

"Okay."

Don exhales loudly, pushes off the fridge and busies himself with the kettle, filling the cups with water, mixing in the tea bags for Alan, Robin and himself and instant hot chocolate for Billy.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

That is it?

"That's it?"

"Dad, there is nothing we can change about it now."

He pretends to be fine with this, but Alan senses that Don is in turmoil again. His eyes are darker than usual, as if the proverbial clouds have gathered there, obscuring any emotion that might be on display otherwise.

"I'm just... Do you know what Mom thought about this?"

What?

Oh God, not this. This is not good. Why, why, why did he bring this up?

Alan curses his stupidity for this, self- flagellates himself a couple of times while Don is staring at him, not moved by the distress that is probably very visible on his father's face.

"I don't know, Donn-"

He nearly said 'Donnie' but his Donnie never would have that dark dead look in his eyes.

"But you know, right?"

"I have an idea, yes."

"So do I."

None of them heard Cooper enter and he is now standing in the doorway, Robin half- hidden behind him.

"Sorry, we were just wondering what was taking you so long."

"What?"

Don's voice is incredulous, but at least he has found words, whereas Alan is dumbstruck. How would Cooper know what his wife thought about this issue?

"Coop, how the... How do you know?"

He shrugs, a casual gesture that belies the tension in his stance. He slowly moves into the kitchen, Robin following him, her gaze flitting between the three of them, while Cooper's is holding Don's stare.

"Because I asked her."

"When?"

It is not so much a word than a sound Alan exhales.

Now Billy actually looks uncomfortable, and he avoids eye contact for a moment, eyes flitting about, before looking back at Don.

"In Boston, when she was in the hospital, the first day when you were still knocked out from the anaesthesia."

"You actually asked her?"

"Yes."

"I can't believe it. Coop..."

Don trails off, his hands start to compulsively rake through his hair, a sure sign of distress, even more so when he glances at his watch two or three times while obviously trying to regain his equilibrium. His facade has slipped now, the cool exterior is gone, and Alan suspects that his son and he are looking pretty much the same right now.

Wondering and aghast at the balls Cooper had, actually daring to ask Margaret something like this. Alan cannot decide in that moment if it makes him like Billy any less or not.

"So what did she say?"

Silence.

Robin has slowly moved over to Don and is now leaning against him, though Alan suspects she is offering support more than seeking it. Her softly- voiced question is cutting through the tension.

"Pretty much the same that Alan said... I'm sorry, Don."

"You knew and you never told me?"

Don's voice is cold and toneless. His eyes, fixed onto Billy's, are stormy from what Alan can discern.

"You knew that I wondered about that. And you went and asked and you never told me? What the hell, Coop?"

Attention has shifted away from their original confrontation, Robin and he are only supportive actors now, as the second act of the play unfolds. Or maybe it is the fourth or fifth. There has certainly been drama and angst enough already.

From the looks of it, they are not yet finished.

And it is still only Friday.


	9. Honesty is the Backbone of Everything

**Title:** Honesty is the Backbone of Every True Relationship  
**Series:** Ulysses *8/12*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Billy- pov, Don, Robin, Don/ Robin, Alan/ Margaret  
**Rating:** PG- 13/ K  
**Summary: ** "Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting."

**Word Count:** 4322  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** A million tons of thanks as always go to valeriev84 and to rinkle who beta'ed this for me and helped me make this more authentic...

**Prompt:** # 151 Devotion  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Honesty is the Backbone of Every True Relationship**

"Pretty much the same that Alan said... I'm sorry, Don."

"You knew and you never told me?"

If you tried, you would be able to cut the tension with a knife.

"You knew that I wondered about that. And you went and asked and you never told me? What the hell, Coop?"

"There are some things better left unsaid."

Don's eyes are as cold and dark as his voice.

"This was not one of those things... You never had the right to ask her this! How? Why? I... Coop..."

There have not been many circumstances where Don Eppes was at a loss for words and Coop was there to witness it, but this is a scene he would rather scratch from his memory right now. The thing is he does not know himself why he did it, why he did not tell Don about asking Margaret.

Maybe it was because he wanted to protect the other man. Don has been hurt by his parents' actions before as they were unaware of the impact they had on their oldest son. From what Don told him, Margaret and Alan were good attentive parents who were just in a difficult situation. No- one knows how to deal with a gifted child, and another child just adds strain on the best of relationships.

There is only so much attention both parents can divide between the children, and at some point, the child in more need of attention draws them in more. They rely on the other child to be able to get along on his own, yet never fail to show him how much they love and appreciate him.

At least that is what he understood from what Margaret told him.

They were depending on Don being able to care for himself at times; otherwise they would not have known how to deal.

"Because Margaret asked me not to."

She had, actually. Never said it out loud, but implied it in the way she had acted towards Billy afterwards. Apprehensive yet attentive, still in mother- mode with Don and him but there was something about her behaviour that told him that what she had told him better not come to Don's attention.

Now, though, more than a decade later, it has, and Billy wonders what possessed him to open his big fat mouth and sprout out the truth.

He should have just shut up and let things pass by. No- one would have been the wiser.

There will be time for self- flagellation later. A lot of time, so he has to concentrate on the now, because otherwise they might not escape this unscathed.

"What? She asked you not to tell me?"

The betrayal is clear in Don's voice, and it hurts Billy. From the look on Robin's face, she hurts, too, for Don, while Alan's visage is closed off.

Not good.

He is the villain in this drama at the moment, he is the one who came onto the stage after two of the good people asked him to join them, and now he has destroyed the peace.

"I don't think she wanted to cause you pain."

"And you thought now it wouldn't?"

"No. I didn't... It just came out. I don't know why."

"_It just came out. I don't know why."_

"_You're disgusting, Coop. Oh God, what did you have for dinner?"_

_Don is rolling down the driver's window, trying to get the smell of Billy's series of farts out of the car as quick as possible, otherwise they might just die from the fumes. _

"_I had the same shit as you. And the weird French fries."_

"_It was probably them. This smell is..."_

_Don Eppes at a loss for words is something Billy has never accomplished before, his partner's wit usually quick and lethal enough to match his own. _

"_It's vile."_

"_Farts usually are."_

"_Yeah, but this is worse. Oh jeez, Billy."_

"_Will you get over yourself, Eppes. It's just a fart!"_

"_But you should've opened the window. Or warned me!"_

"_Is that the only problem you have?"_

"_Right now? Yeah."_

"_You're so lucky. You don't have to worry about that guy, you know, Peter Sloterdeik... You ever heard of him, Eppes?"_

"_What a coincidence- I have!"_

"_Then get your brain in gear. Farts? You're worrying about farts?"_

_Now he is annoyed. Eppes is good, but he is not that good that he can pull off that level of cheekiness with him yet._

"_Get your act together, Eppes!"_

"_Gimme a break here, Coop. I'm still-"_

"_If you say you're still trying to find your feet, I will club you over the head, tie you up and then fart all over you!"_

"_You have any brothers?"_

_That stops Billy dead in his tracks._

"_What the Hell? You know I don't. What's that got to do with anything?"_

"_If you had a brother, you would've done all that farting shit with him when you were a kid. I mean, you do that shit when you're an adolescent!"_

"_You ever do that with the genius?"_

_Funny how the curtain always slams shut over Don whenever he mentions his younger brother. At least it is one effective way to end unpleasant conversations. Bring up Charlie Eppes. Billy had heard of him before he had been partnered up with Don, and he had been wary of the prodigy. There was one article in the New York Times last year that mentioned that Charlie, along with all his accomplishments, especially the Eppes Convergence, was his parents' golden child, the apple of their eyes. _

_So what did that make the older son that had been briefly mentioned?_

_Billy had wondered about it, and now he is sitting next to that brother, and he cannot imagine why the author of that article would simply dismiss him just like that. By the time the article had appeared, Don had already been in the FBI, had finished up the training course top of his class and was already some kind of a legend among the freshly minted junior agents- his talent and instincts already famed. _

_Now, they are both legends._

_Billy already had a reputation before being partnered up with 'the Terrier' but together they are deadly. _

"_Charlie was too busy."_

_Seems like he caught a good moment. Maybe Don is really in a mood to open up._

"_To fart?"_

_The look his partner shoots him just then would be deadly if Billy was not able to read between the lines, discern the pain hiding behind it._

"_To have fun, to do that kinda thing, you know? He was always all about learning."_

_Don roughs up his hair a bit when he draws his fingers through it and Billy makes a mental note to tease him about the curls that are developing at the nape. Looks like Charlie Eppes is not the only curly haired Eppes, just with him they are more pronounced. _

"_Tutors and special teachers and psychologists. That sorta thing. By the time Mom and Dad remembered that he should be a child, too, it was too late."_

"_That sounds gloomy."_

"_He never could be a kid, you know? His talent was discovered when he was so young, and he's been raised on it ever since. Honed, enhanced it, whatever. For him, fun is math."_

"_You sure about that?"_

"_Oh, Mom tried to get him to play piano, Dad tried to get him to play baseball..."_

_The other man's voice has trailed off, and the silence is worrying Billy now. _

_As closed up as Don usually is, he rarely lets a statement just hang in the air like that. Billy chances a glance, Don's face is turned towards the window still watching the road, staring off onto what is ahead of him but probably not really seeing anything. _

_The moment is over._

_Ah well. Billy mentally shrugs. It might be over for now, but it is not like Don and he never spend any quality time together._

_In fact, they rarely do anything but. _

"Well, this is messed up."

Alan smirks at Robin's dry remark, even though neither of them look away from Don.

The man in question turns, takes a few steps away from Billy, and it is all he can do not follow him. Don has always been his weakness in a way, the protective instinct he feels towards the other man always coming out full throttle when confronted with a tense situation.

And if this does not qualify as one, Billy does not know what does.

"We need to talk."

This is quite the statement from Don Eppes, who usually avoids talking like the plague, but it seems that Robin has rubbed off on him.

"Okay."

"Follow me."

He knows that Eppes is an excellent interrogator, has seen him in action multiple times, but to have that cold and clinically detached voice directed at himself is a feeling that he never wants to experience again.

He has to set this right.

Don is already halfway out to the front yard and by the time Billy has caught up with him, he is sitting on the steps, arms propped up on bent knees, dark head bent down. Just from looking at the back of his head, Billy can tell that he is frowning, crinkles of unhappiness lining his features.

He plops down beside him and mirrors the posture.

"So, talk."

Don's head comes up so fast he must have gotten whiplash.

"Why do I have to talk? You were the one with the big mouth!"

"You'd rather I never told you?"

"Were you ever actually planning on telling me?"

Oops.

"This is what upsets me, Coop. This. You told me, but never meant to. And now it's out and you don't know what to do. Did you have any idea what you were asking for when you asked Mom?"

What can he say to that?

"You asked her something, you know I... Coop, damn it. Why the fuck did you do that?"

It is rare that Don Eppes resorts to swear words of the four- letter- variety, but Billy cannot really blame him.

"Was she upset?"

What?

"Huh?"

"You know, did she come right out and answer or... Did she fight? Was she uncomfortable?"

Oh. He knows that Don had issues with his parents that he was unsure if they cared for him as much as they cared for Charlie, but he did not know that the doubt ran this deep.

"Donnie, your mother loved you so much. Really. Seriously."

That earns him a vicious glance, but the tension has deflated by the tiniest amount.

"Totally?"

"Absolutely."

It is a game that they have been playing ever since their first meeting. For whatever reason, Don has always hated the word 'seriously' and whenever it slips past his lips, it has a sour sound to it, which Billy finds quite amusing, actually. They used to spend hours in the car imitating teenager's language, totally forgoing the fact that once upon a time they had been talking like them, too, or at least had their own version of slang.

It was something they started to use to loosen up the mood after the emotionally draining hunt for Burt Brethren (and whenever Billy hears the word 'brethren' he gets a sour taste in his mouth).

"Do you know that her favourite non- piano piece was Vaughan Williams' _Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis_?"

"No."

"She used to have it on record, and she would sit me down in the evening before I had to go to bed, and would read to me or just listen to the record. Point out the chords and the instruments, the rhythm and the motions the conductor would make. This was my special time with her, because Dad would always stay away, and when Charlie was born, he would take him with him. So that I had Mom for myself for a while."

It is rare for Don to talk so much in one go, but Billy will not break the spell right now. Somewhere in this is the key to why Don is questioning his mother's love, which will then lead to them resolving this issue that is dangling between them like a hung man.

"I used to promise her that I would find a way to play that piece on the piano, but she'd always tell me to just concentrate on what others had already composed."

Don interlaces his fingers, fiddles around with his hands.

"She would play a different piece of music every night, but it would always end with Williams. She said that it haunted her, that it broke her heart the first time she heard it. When I was eight- years- old, they took me to the Philharmonics. Charlie was with our granny, but they took me. It was a concert dedicated completely to Williams. Brilliant. Just so brilliant. I loved every minute of it."

The fiddling has stopped but now one hand is compulsively opening and closing the clasp of his wristwatch.

"Mom promised me that she would take me to at least four concerts every year. Three months later Charlie started to count and that was it."

"No more concerts?"

"Oh, we did go. Just not that many times. Makes you wonder, you know? If your mother promises you something, and then she doesn't keep it? Trust is important... Faith is important. A child's faith in their parents is essential in how they are growing up."

"Makes your parents sound evil."

"Oh no, they weren't evil- just way in over their heads. And I could get around by myself, so they focussed on Charlie, naturally."

"Naturally."

Maybe his disdain has shone through because Don's dark eyes are now directed at him, and the look is not a happy one.

"I didn't want to be a burden, so I grew up. Helped out. I tried to be the big boy that Dad always told me I was, but then they went away with Charlie to meetings, and they left me with the sitter, or with granny. It didn't happen often, but it did occur. What was I supposed to think?"

"That they didn't want you."

Don's lips twitch in an ironic smile.

"I wanted to run away when I was ten. Because Mom was crying on the couch and her and Dad were fighting. I thought if I was gone, they wouldn't have to worry about me and Charlie, just about Charlie. I would be fine. I had my things all packed up when I snuck across the hall to get my toothbrush-"

At this Billy has to snort.

"Your toothbrush?"

"Yes, my toothbrush."

"Geez, Donnie, I knew you were all anal and OCD but running away with your toothbrush?"

"Just because I was running away didn't mean I had to disregard my personal hygiene."

An indignant Don is something funny, and Billy has to fight hard to suppress the chuckles threatening to spill.

"Anyways, I heard Mom and Dad talking. Mom said that she still wanted to teach me about music, that she still needed me to ground her. That she didn't know what she'd do without me. She'd be lost without me, because she could share stuff with me, music and books. Dad said that he would never stop trying to teach me how to construct buildings, the statistics behind it and all, stuff that just didn't interest me and all that. I don't know how they got to talking about me, but there it was... Dad and Charlie were always more hands- on and science- y than her and me."

He is certainly right about that. Billy will never forget his surprise when he learned that his new partner was a bookworm and had tapes of classical music among his rock music- ones.

"So you didn't leave?"

"Nah, 'course not. I felt I was needed. And not just as Donnie- who- can- babysit- Charlie, but as Donnie. Her son. Their son, that they still had to teach stuff."

"Did anything change?"

"Nope. Well, no, that's a lie. She paid more attention to me for a while. It felt good. Felt special."

"_You can play piano?"_

"_Yep."_

"_That is cool. Really."_

"_Lose the mocking tone, Coop, and I'll believe you."_

"_I mean it, man. Piano is good. I just took flute."_

_Don chortles at this._

"_Flute? Cute."_

"_Yeah well, I had to. School requirement."_

"_Why didn't you take another instrument?"_

"_Because I didn't pay attention."_

_No more chortling. Don is outright laughing at him._

"_May I just remind you, Eppes, that I am in the driver's seat? I could always kick you out."_

"_You wouldn't."_

"_And what makes you think that?"_

"_Because you know I'd tell everybody."_

_He has to concede this point._

"_Fine you can stay."_

"_Plus, the cold's clogged up your sinuses, and your bloodhound instinct is not up to par."_

"_You're a comedian, you know that? Should take that act up on the road."_

"_I wanted to, but they didn't want me."_

"_I can't imagine why."_

"_They said I didn't smile enough."_

"_Really?"_

_He has not seen Don smile much. It is not something the other man does frequently. He will have to make him get used to the fact that the lips can turn upward, too, in a genuinely amused visage, not just one with a snarking undertone to it._

"_You any good?"_

"_At what?"_

"_The piano."_

_The other man clams up underneath his gaze. Just like that. Snap your finger and you are done and that is all that you get out of Don Eppes for the day._

"_Your brother play, too?"_

"_Yep."_

_The tone has gone sharp now. He is treading on thin ice. _

"_Better than you? Excelled at that, too?"_

_He never was one for caution._

"_Actually, he sucked at it."_

_Wonder Boy sucked at something? Billy feels as though his eyes have grown the size of saucers._

"_And of course then the teacher paid more attention to him because it couldn't be that Charlie didn't have a feeling for rhythm when he could tell you in what tact they were played so effortlessly. Nooooo."_

_Don shakes his head, his voice pitched high in a dramatical fashion._

"_Took them a couple of years to figure out that he was tone deaf. Still is."_

_There is more to it, Billy can feel it._

"_And?"_

"_By then I'd already stopped playing. Charlie sucked the fun out of it. Stupid black hole of a math genius."_

_Sometimes disregard of caution is the right way to play the field, and it seems as though Billy has scored a homerun. _

"_He'd intrude on everything. Piano lessons, time with Mom, baseball. Always following me around like a stupid puppy. And it was always about him. Teachers always compared me to him. And you know what? I don't think his English teacher in primary school ever graded his paper. It had mistakes all over it, but because he was Charlie Eppes, he got a free ride to fuckin' everywhere!"_

"_So, he got a get out of jail- card?"_

"_I used to think so. Now, of course, no. But he got a lotta leeway, anyways."_

"_Because he was the genius."_

"_Yes... And all I got to hear was that I wasn't the genius. That all that I was good at was sports. Jock, you know?"_

_Billy has to smile at that. Don can pull off the jock persona pretty well, when in truth he is anything but. _

"_Yeah, but you were good, weren't'cha?"_

"_Yeah, sure. I mean, 'course. I love sports. But I wasn't so bad in school either."_

_Don rests his head on the window, staring out the scenery they are passing by. Billy gives him a moment to reflect. His partner, his friend, is not one who talks a lot, and this recent rush of words out of his mouth has probably exhausted him, or something. _

"_He'd sit with me after school, watching me practice, shouting stats and all that over the field, wanting to help us."_

_His hand rubs over his face, a sure sign of distress, even if his expression and voice does not give anything away._

"_I couldn't care less, kinda ignored him. He was my little brother, yeah, and I'd watch out for him during school, but at baseball, that was my turf. He'd no right to intrude. Just pretended he wasn't there."_

_There is a point to this; Don rarely speaks without having a purpose. _

"_Some other guys, they didn't just ignore him. They taunted him, idiots, just pushed him around a bit after practice when he was waiting for me. He was a scrawny kid, couldn't really do anything against them. They knew I'd kick their asses once I got out, so if they were in a nasty mood, they'd stall me."_

_He softly thumps his head against the window. _

"_One day I just snapped, got into a fight with some of them. They deserved it, Charlie had scraped his knees fairly badly because they'd pushed him to the ground, sat on him. Jock shit. Wedgies and noogies and all that."_

_More face scrubbing._

"_Anyways, that day, they stole my clothes, hid them in the gear room, and I knew something was up. When I finally got out, I got into a fight with them, which coach broke up. Gave me shit about not protecting my brother properly."_

_His face twists into a nasty expression, sneering._

"'_Why are you standing around, watching them beat up your brother, Eppes! You know better than to just stand by! Look out for your brother better, Eppes. His brain is more valuable than yours.' He didn't say anything to the guys, just gave me a put down. They got detention, too, but still... That's how it was. I protected the little shit and it wouldn't be enough."_

"_What did Charlie say?"_

"_Defended me, but coach wouldn't listen. Little brother talking about older brother who should've known better and all that. They respected him for his big ass brains, but never really took his opinions seriously, what he had to say outside the classroom... I mean, he was sheltered, still is, in a way, with his head all stuck up in the heavens of science and math, but he knows stuff, he has an opinion."_

"_Worshipped you?"_

"_A bit, yeah. Never understood why, though. He intimidates the shit out of me. He knew stuff when he was eight that I still don't have a clue about. You know how that feels?"_

_He does not have to answer that. It is fairly obvious._

"_He can be arrogant. He's aloof at times. I know he looks down on me sometimes. But he never does it out of spite. That's just how it is."_

_Billy cannot just let this rest._

"_That's not right. He could try and develop some tact, you know. Maybe pay attention to other people's emotions."_

"_How? Everything has always revolved around him. He doesn't know any better."_

_Don looks at him, eyes a bit sad. _

"_At times I wonder if my parents'd had me if Charlie had been born first. I don't think they would've. At times I hate him. What kinda brother does that make me?"_

"I know my parents wanted me. But the other way round? I would've been a nuisance."

It is quite possible that either way it would have turned out, Don would have drawn the short straw when it came to attention. The focus would have been on Charlie just the same, and Don knows this. That probably hurts just as much as the mere thought of his parents not wanting him had Charlie been born first.

"I can understand them, I tell that myself all the time. But..."

"... a part never stops wondering."

"Nah, not wondering. Hurting."

The silence around them is heavy, but Billy does not know how to break it, how to ease the tension.

"I can't change anything now, I know that. But a question like that stays with you, if you don't have the answer."

"Maybe now that you know, maybe you can let it go. Stop hurting."

They have had many conversations, but never have they been this expressive about emotions.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to hurt you."

They sitting on the steps, close to each other, in a similar position, hands clasped in front of them, dangling between their knees. Billy cannot resist but bump shoulders with Don.

"You're my little brother, man."

Don looks up at him from underneath his lashes, a shy smile tentatively lightning up his face.

"Tell anyone else, and I'll deny every word."

"They won't hear it from me, big brother."

It is weird to think that they have never actually said those words. It is a thoroughly cheesy moment that makes Billy gag a bit, but he also knows that they needed exactly this, to talk things out, even if not much talking has been done.

This has always been their method. They will not change that. It is what works best for them, so why should they change a winning tactic?

"We okay?"

He still has to ask, an uncertainty still lingering, a feeling he is not too fond of.

This time Don bumps him in the shoulder.

"Yeah. We're okay."

"Beer?"

"Oh God, yes."

Girly time is over.

And they are good. That is all that he wants. All that he wishes for.

In a movement that Billy cannot explain, he launches himself at Don's retreating back so that he will have to carry him, the other man stumbling, nearly falling before he recovers and shifts Billy around on his back, so that he fits.

It is a moment of lightness direly needed after the anxiety of the evening so far and he glimpses Robin with a camera, standing around the corner of the house.

Picture perfect.

At least for now.


	10. Fantasies are Reserved for the Bedroom

**Title:** Fantasies are Reserved for the Bedroom  
**Series:** Ulysses *9/13*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Robin- pov, Billy Cooper, Don/Robin & minor Don/Billy  
**Rating:** R/M due to sexual content

**Warming:** slash in one scene  
**Summary: ** "Would you believe me if I said that Don and I once kissed?"

**Word Count:** 5751  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** It might be very obvious that a certain amount of frustration was within me when I wrote the chapter, and thanks to the feeding and encouragement of valeriev84, this chapter came to be :D

A gazillion tons of thanks for out to her and rinkle for the beta and assistance 

**Prompt:** # 61 Object of Affection  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Fantasies are Reserved for the Bedroom**

The vibration of Don's cell phone wakes her.

She does not know why because it usually never rouses her until Don actually has to get up, but now the soft sound invades her consciousness and tears her from the dream she had.

What she dreamt about, she has no recollection of.

She leaves her eyes closed, can hear the sheets rustling as Don awakes, and the weight of his arms leaves her waist. His quiet voice is a soothing sound that just about sends her back into Lala- land when she remembers that this is supposed to be his weekend off, so why would they be calling him in?

A one- eyed glance tells her that it is 9am and that they have slept like the dead after returning from Alan's the night before. The evening had been draining for all of them, but Don in particular, and the way he clung to her when they went to bed, told her more than words ever could.

He will talk about it at some point, he has gotten to that point thanks to Dr Bradford, but to push him would be counterproductive, so she is willing to wait him out. In the end, Robin Brooks has way more patience than Don Eppes.

There is a soft whump as Don falls onto the bed, and the mattress creaks a bit under the abrupt change of pressure. Now, of course, she cannot pretend to be asleep any longer, especially when she suspects that he already knew she was awake.

Otherwise he surely would not have pulled such a rude move that made the sheets move off her body.

Ah well, she will give him whatever little pleasure he can take because it sounds like the caller did not have the best of news.

"What's wrong?"

Don in the morning is a sight to behold.

His hair is still ruffled from sleep and with the current length it is at, the curls are fighting even more than during the day to break out and spring up in random patterns all over the place. She has tried to tame this mass of black, but after five consecutive tries gave up and admitted to her failure.

He should just cut it if he is bothered by it, and from what comes out of the bathroom in the morning he is, but she likes the way it is at the moment. Just not any longer.

Anyways, with the hair a mess, his eyes are still slightly unfocused and soft from sleep and there is soft stubble breaking out on his jaw. The tee he started sleeping in at some point during the night was discarded by her because she likes the feel of his solid chest against her bare skin more than anything when they spoon and the boxers are just riding low enough to give her a glimpse of what lingers below the treasure trail (and how does she hate that expression but at this time in the morning she is too tired still to think of something more adequate or enticing).

He breathes deeply in and out, his chest rising and falling in a hypnotic pattern. Her drool is at the same time collecting in her mouth and her will power is working to its highest capacity to keep aforementioned drool from dribbling out of her mouth at the sight.

Don's chest is something... Oh, it is _something_.

The things this chest can do. Soothe her, with the beat of the gentle and determined heart that it protects. Shield her when she wants to look away from a horror flick (Don claims to like them, but she suspects that they are really just a means to get her to cuddle up to him).

His chest is strong, and while he does not have a six pack, he is solidly muscled, and just perfect. Not too hard and not soft at all, still.

Just plain perfect with the right amount of chest hair gracing it, the sensitive nipples that are peaking right now as her gaze lingers on them and vaguely she realizes that Don is talking to her, but she cannot tear her gaze away.

And can anyone blame her?

That chest is amazing, and when they are under the shower or taking a bath at her place and there are bubbles and-

"Roooooooooooobin?"

Don has this amused and knowing twinkle in his eyes that she usually hates but cannot really blame him for at the moment. She reckons that the lust in her eyes could have been discovered by Charlie who is as clueless as anyone she has ever met, when it comes to emotions at times.

"Yes?"

Reluctantly she forces herself to focus on Don's face, his eyes, not his chest. It is not like this is a chore, either, his eyes are such a nice deep brown colour that she gets lost in them... She really needs to get a grip.

Or she needs to get some.

Don.

Oh yes, she needs some Don.

"Honey, as much as I'd love to, I've got to go in to work."

She wants to tear off those boxers, drag him under the shower and have her wicked way with him and then back into-

"What?"

"The hearing for the Lutton- case is Monday and the DA wants to meet today to go over some paperwork so that we are all prepared."

No wonder Don is going against his nature and is ignoring the messages she is sending him. The Lutton- case included everything that he hates in cases, child abuse, paedophilia, perverts, hurt children.

She can remember the case well, too well.

She helped prepare the prosecution's case, as did almost every DA in the county, and now hopes that the whole organization goes to jail. Cyber crime usually was not Don's territory but it had been a combined effort of three different departments of the LA- office to bring down the gang that had terrorized children over the course of fourteen months.

"Okay."

"You'll be okay with Coop?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll just chain him up and then wait for you to come back."

She needs to lighten mood, forces herself to send him a saucy grin.

"What is it with you and your fantasies involving me and Coop?"

He is truly curious about this interest of hers.

"Well, it is Coop and you, you know?"

"So?"

He does not see the appeal? How come he does not see the appeal?

"You mean you and Coop really never?"

"Ehm, no. Why?"

She has succeeded in taking his mind off the case, even if it is only for a couple of seconds, but if those seconds are something that he can look upon later and use as a distraction, that is more than fine with her. Plus, there is always Billy that she can needle.

"Coop and me never. Why would you even think that?"

"You should look in the mirror and then maybe think like a woman."

He gets up off the bed, starts grabbing underwear, socks and a black tee from his drawers.

"You think only men fantasize about women doing women? We think about men doing men, too, you know?"

She gets up, saunters over to him, swinging her hips seductively.

"We do it, too, and when you have two such attractive men in the house..."

Oh, his mind is somewhere entirely else, and she slaps herself a bit. It is not nice to try to distract him from such a horrible case by turning him on, but this early in the morning, the only way to get through to Don Eppes when he has not had his coffee yet, are either work or sex.

Work is out, since he is distraught because of it, so sex it is.

And there is nothing more fun than to watch Don Eppes squirm, to reduce him to a ball of discomfort when there is talk about sex and he does not have the upper hand. Oh, do not get her wrong, Don likes her to be in charge, but talk like this?

Definitely out of the box for him, because he is surprisingly conservative, but also fun.

And again, it is such a nice mental image to contemplate.

She really needs to focus on distracting Don who is standing in the middle of his bedroom, clutching his clothes, staring at her with a kind of hungry gaze.

"We love to think of man- on- man action."

He swallows hard and the wheels in his head can practically be heard turning at high speed.

"You want..."

That was more a croak than a voice, so he clears his throat, looks around the room and then turns back to her.

"You want to have a threesome?"

Ah, she can see where his mind is headed, but is sorry to disappoint. This is purely for the fun of needling him about Billy.

"No, not at all. This is about you and Billy."

He looks at his empty wrist in an all too familiar gesture, takes a few steps towards the wall as if trying to escape her and she has to grin.

"I have to go shower."

"Want me to join?"

The tell- tale bulge in his boxers tells her yes, but his voice actually says no, which is for the better, really because they both know that when they shower together, they will not get out any time soon.

"Nope. Thanks."

"Fine by me. I'll just fantasize about you and Coop on my own."

He groans, softly smacks his head against the wall behind him.

"Nothing I can do to stop you?"

"Oh, you know me, Eppes. Takes a lot to get me to stop thinking."

She leers down at his body, slowly tracing it up and down, licks her lips and can see him respond even more.

"Shower. You and me. Now."

She pretends to be shocked.

"But, Don, you have to get into the office."

"Oh, trust me, I'll be quick."

He growls more than says that and she laughs.

Mission accomplished, for now. Once he is back, Billy and her can work him over, make him forget.

Don is long gone by the time Billy rouses from the couch in the tiny guest room that normally is more of a second closet than anything else, and she has read the paper, done the crossword and even did the dishes Don used when he slurped down the cup of coffee she had prepared while he was getting dressed.

When the other man stumbles into the small kitchen, nearly gouging his eyes out as he his rubbing them so hard, hair standing every which way, another pot of coffee is brewing and all the bowl with muesli needs is milk.

"You're gonna make a great housewife, Brooks."

She swats him with the rolled- up issue of _Vanity Fair_ she has been browsing and sips her own cup.

"That coffee?"

"Yep."

"You gonna pour me one?"

"Do I look like your maid or wife?"

Billy grins at her, still a bit bleary- eyed, and gets up to fill his own cup and grab the carton of milk from the fridge.

"Where's Don?"

"Had to go into the office."

"Why?"

More milk than she ever thought possible is poured over the muesli and he is actually filling the bowl to the brim.

"Didn't you have milk as a kid?"

His grin widens.

"But Mommy, you always said that calcium would help me grow. I'm still a little boy."

Sitting there with a puppy- dog look in his eyes, she just knows that he is aware of how his behaviour can be perceived.

"You were a pest as a child, right?"

"Sure was."

He grabs the paper and for a while the only sounds that can be heard is his annoying slurping, which he does just for her, and him munching on the cereal.

"So why did Don go to the office?"

"You heard of the Lutton- case?"

"Who hasn't?"

"Well, the first hearing's tomorrow, and the DA wants to have everything set, so he called in a Saturday meeting."

"Ouch... So it's just us for now?"

"Yeah."

She counters his suggestive gaze with one of her own.

"You got anything in mind?"

"How about going for a run?"

"Burning off any excess energy?"

Billy snorts.

"Nah, just for the heck of it. It's a gorgeous day, why let it go to waste?"

Now it is her who is snorting.

"Please, it's a Saturday. I am not going for a run on a Saturday. It's a law."

"A law?"

"Yes, a law."

"So what do you do on a Saturday?"

"Wouldn't you like to know..."

She sashays out of the kitchen, intent on wriggling her behind for all that she is worth. Billy is fun to banter with, they both know where they stand, so it is always amusing to test the boundaries, see how far they can tread.

"Why yes, I'd love to, darlin'!"

She is changing in the bedroom, but the apartment is small (cosy, Don calls it) enough that he can hear her easily.

"Well, you in a good mood."

"Yes."

Now he sounds just a bit apprehensive, and he has reason to.

"Fine, then you'll come with me, shopping."

The thud she hears is probably from his head hitting the table top. It is a rather hollow sound, she muses to herself before snickering.

"Does Don do that with you, too?"

"Yup."

If she can convince him, which usually involves spending the first half of the day in bed and then dragging him out of it under the pretence of needing something really urgently.

He can probably see through her ruse the minute she starts it, but never calls her on it, for which she loves him.

"He really must love you."

He does, she thinks. He loves her, she loves him, and everything is as perfect as it will probably ever get between the two of them, not counting potential offspring or maybe marriage, even. She knows he wants to have children, and she knows he wants to have those children with her, but what about marriage?

Would she convert to Judaism for him?

She does not know, does not know if he even thought about it. His father would love to have a big wedding, hell, Alan probably already has the Charlie and Amita- wedding all planned out, once it is going to happen.

Would Don ask her to convert or would they just have a small ceremony, go to City Hall?

And why is thinking this now?

Easy. Billy mentioned love, mentioned Don loving her, which still makes her happy, the sound and safe knowledge that they are both in the same place. Besides, she is a woman, she hears love, she is in a steady relationship and she thinks wedding and marriage.

It is a scary place to go.

"You still there, Brooks? He did tell you he loves you, right?"

She realizes she is standing in the middle of the bedroom, her white casual shirt nearly buttoned down, the top button of her skinny jeans undone.

"He did tell me."

There is a blush of delight spreading along her cheeks and she is not even embarrassed about it.

"Good for you."

Billy sounds genuinely happy for her.

"And good for Don. Otherwise I might just have kicked his ass."

With that he turns and heads into the spare room to get ready, too, and being a man he is out just as quickly, having changed into loose jeans and a white shirt that accentuates his upper body perfectly.

"You're staring."

She slips into her flats, grabs her purse and pushes him out of the apartment.

"So? You were doing it earlier, too."

"Yeah, but that's because you were just showing off. You know that's not fair."

"Pfff. Is, too."

"Very mature, Brooks."

She locks the door behind them and slaps him on his butt.

"Don's is better."

"Hah, he wishes! My butt was always firmer than his!"

"Nah, I doubt that but it would be a close race. Yours is hairier, though."

"Never. My butt is not hairy!"

Robin smiles at old Ms Gebrilda from Don's floor who pretends to be deaf at all times instead of those when one wishes she actually could not hear a thing, like right now. Her look of horror and audible gasp makes Robin fear for a second that she is going to have a heart attack but then she just hugs her rat of a dog closer as if Billy and her were predators.

Well, Robin is in a predatory mood, but it has nothing to do with old ladies who flirt with younger men, namely Don. In moments like those, Robin gets very territorial.

Billy is waiting until they are sitting in her car before he picks up the thread of conversation again.

"How would you know about my butt's hairiness anyways?"

"I just took a guess."

"I'll have you know that Don's butt... is actually... No, none of our asses are hairy."

"And how would you know that?"

"Well, I've seen Don naked, so what?"

Oh, this is too good.

"Actually, now that you mention it..."

He gets her, he gets her drift. He always has.

"You hot for us?"

Her mother taught her never to lie when there was no reason to. Why start now?

"Show me a woman who isn't."

"You suggesting a threesome? Don would never go for that."

"Oh no, not a threesome. I'm not into that."

"Been there, done that, eh?"

"There were times when college was actually boring and parties were actually exciting."

"Why, Brooks. I never figured."

She scoffs at that.

"Oh please, that's a lie. Ridiculous."

They both laugh softly.

"So, what I meant, actually, with the two of you..."

"Yes?"

Maybe she is taking this a bit too far.

"You fantasize about Don and me? Just the two of us?"

Thank you for that mental image! And thank you, Billy for actually bringing it up. As wild as Robin can be, there are borders for all friendships, and her actually saying this out loud would have breached that line even if it had been in jest. Kind of.

It is a good thing she is behind the wheel so she does not have to face the look on Billy's face which is most certainly expressing glee to the highest extent possible.

Where she likes to needle Don, he does the same to her, no shame whatsoever.

"You so do!"

Now he is crowing like a little kid and she is turning beet red.

"And?"

"You tell Don?"

"Yes."

"How did he react?"

Pretty much like she is right now.

"What do you think?"

"Like you, right? All blushing and stammer-y and not so cocky any longer."

"There are moments where I don't like you."

He gasps and grabs at his heart.

"Oh no! The pain! The heartache!"

He is mocking her and thoroughly enjoying it. How unfair, she cannot think of retaliation material.

"So you really like to think of Don and me?"

"I'm a woman. I can see the appeal."

"Yeah, it is all very Brokeback Mountain- y."

"Only hotter."

"What? You don't think Jake is and Heath was hot?"

Now it is her turn to be incredulous.

"Way too young for me."

"But they age in the movie."

Robin is now very close to hitting her head on the steering wheel. Repeatedly.

"I don't care about them. I have two hot men right here. Why would I need some out of reach actors?"

"Real life rewards? You sure you're against threesomes?"

"Yes! I want Don to myself, thank you very much."

Thankfully they have arrived at the lot where she wants to park so now that they are in public, surely Billy will stop with the current topic of conversation?

Today is not her lucky day.

"Why're you so uncomfortable now? You brought it up!"

"I never actually thought you'd react to it."

"Want me to leave it alone?"

"For now, yes."

**N3 - N3 - N3 - N3**

Two pairs of Marc Jacobs- shoes for her and one for Don, three tops and a pair of jeans for Billy later, they have lunch at a small cafe next to her favourite vintage shop when Billy comes back to the topic that she would have loved to contemplate in the privacy of Don's or her place.

"Would you believe me if I said that Don and I once kissed?"

What did he just say?

"What did you just say?"

"I asked if you-"

"You and Don kissed?"

When did her voice reach this funny pitchy note? She has not heard that one since she watched Johnny Depp in _Chocolat_ at a girl's night in with girlfriends.

"Maybe."

"Maybe? There is no _maybe_ to this! Did you or did you not?"

Billy just smiles at her in this infuriating way that he has and she really would like to do mean things to him now. Really mean things, vicious and evil.

"_What's that you're reading?"_

_Don glares at him and Billy has to hold back the chuckle threatening to escape._

"_A book, idiot."_

_He decides to smack the dark- haired man on the head and grabs the thin book from him when Don is distracted._

"_Idiot? Lame, Eppes, lame... James Baldwin? He one of the actor brothers?"_

_Don rips the book out of his hand again, this time smacking him with it._

"_He's a famous author. Philistine."_

"_I know who Baldwin is. Geez, Don, sometimes you are too tightly wound, really."_

_He sits down on Don's side and nudges the other man with his dirty elbow._

"_Why you reading now anyways? Don't you want to, I don't know, shower? There is no law against it, you know."_

"_Shut up and leave me alone."_

_Don is usually not brusque with him like this, and Billy frowns at his friend. The lines around his eyes are pronounced by the dirt marring the sides of his face from where he fell into the heap of leaves their perp threw him into. There is a gash along the line of his temple just by his hairline that is bleeding sluggishly but seems to go unnoticed. The hands gripping the book are dirt- streaked, too, as are Billy's and clenched so tightly that the spine is bending dangerously. _

"_What's wrong?"_

_Don glares at him but Billy is unperturbed. Too much shit has happened between them for him to back down now._

"_I just hate them. They molest children, they rape them, and then they kill them. It's just... They take them from their families, they fuck everyone up and they don't care... I don't get that... It's sick.... I mean, you saw how young some of the kids were... Not even kids, babies..."_

_He sits up, his hand going up into his hair, gripping it so hard Billy is afraid he'll rip out the strands. _

"_Just imagine you hear that this pervert had escaped from prison, that she has attacked children again... What fuckin' asshole took her out of isolation anyways? The psychologist at the trial said she was a psycho, that there was no way she'd ever be able to behave normally and then that fucker at the prison takes her out of maximum security, says that she is now behaving normally..."_

_He paces back and forth, so close to Billy that the other man can feel the brush of his jeans on the stubbled cheeks._

"_... and then he is all surprised that she managed to escape. Jesus, what kinda freaks are they training that they don't even recognise a psycho?"_

"_He was young-"_

"_No fuckin' excuse, Coop! They never should have brought him in. A newbie! Fresh with his PhD and what does he know? Textbook shit! Fuck!"_

_Don kicks the side of the bed, making the mattress vibrate. _

"_So no, Coop, I don't want to shower right now. I want to beat that thing to a pulp, make sure she never sees daylight..."_

_He comes to a stop in front of Billy, his hands hanging listlessly down his side, his whole body seeming to sag into itself. They both have reached their breaking point during this latest case of theirs, nights with barely any sleep, only catnaps taken because neither could bear the thought of this person free any longer than she already was._

"_She killed her own children. How could you even consider that person to be even remotely sane? How could the judge not rule her to be placed into maximum solitary with no consideration? No parole? What kinda justice system is this?"_

_In moments like these, Billy has learned that it is best to just listen to Don until he has run out of steam. _

"_And then they put out an alert, tell parents to keep their children safe and what happens? Fuckin' nothing!"_

_For Don to use the f- word in such rapid succession, he must be more distraught than his hard steps and lax demeanour suggest._

"_You saw them. She killed all of them. She killed children and they just... And that one woman, you know the foster mother... Fuck!"_

_He plops down beside Billy and just stretches out beside him, his filthy shirt riding up to expose a stretch of skin peeking out between the hem and the top of his boxers. _

"_She didn't..."_

_The swallow is painfully audible in the silence of the room, and Billy has to look away from the naked hurt in Don's eyes._

"_She didn't care. The kids were just ones in a long line."_

_Don turns around, pressing his face into the duvet covering the queen- sized bed they will have to share for the night. _

"_We'll have her charged with obstruction of justice because she didn't report the kids missing and because... Well, the DA will think of something."_

_Right now, Billy's brain is too tired to even attempt to contemplate the intricate ways that the law works. They have done their job, they have gotten their minds, clothes, bodies dirty._

_Now they can wash themselves of this job._

_They can try, but he doubts that they will ever feel really clean after this._

"_I just keep thinking, what if this had happened to my kid? What if I had a daughter that this had happened to? And this monster escaped? I would have gone hunting. Even if they were foster kids. Doesn't make them any less innocent or..."_

_Don turns onto his side, facing Billy, and he slowly reclines until he is lying down beside Don. _

"_There is no excuse for their behaviour."_

_Don nods, the movement leaving a thin trail of blood and dirt on the sheets._

"_They will lose their rights to harbour children."_

"_The kids will be better off anywhere but those houses."_

_Silence reigns in the room for a bit as the sun descends and darkness settles, only broken when lightning from the coming storm flashes._

"_There was this teacher at my high school who was abusing young kids. He had kids himself, at the school even."_

_Don's eyes are riveted on him now._

"_Couple of days before Christmas, one kid comes up to the principal, claims that Mr Harper had touched him inappropriately, that he'd promised the kid good grades in chemistry in exchange for sexual favours... The principal started an investigation, suspended Harper until the allegations were proven true and Harper was fired... His kids continued going to the school, though. The oldest son was in my sister's class."_

"_Did he abuse his kids?"_

"_Was never proven. My parents took us out of the school during the summer break. Catherine was in Mr Harper's chemistry class, they were afraid that she had been approached, too, because she just sucked in Chemistry until all of a sudden her grades got better."_

"_Oh God, Coop."_

_Don's left hand reaches out to settle on his arm and Billy decides he likes the contact and doesn't protest when the other man keeps his hand there. At the moment, this physical contact is more reassuring to them than enforced intimacy, like with a girl they met in a bar, could ever be._

"_Actually, turns out that she got her first boyfriend and he was a tutor so he helped her out."_

_Billy chuckles weakly while Don just grimaces._

"_The tutor was an ass, though, took her to Prom with him and then tried to get her to sleep with him, you know the story."_

"_And?"_

"_Well, she is in a convent now, so you can kinda figure out how that turned out."_

"_Jeez. I always thought it was just because all the virtue had gone to her."_

_They both laugh a bit too hard at this. It is the kind of hysterical laughter when exhaustion and despair are the two foremost things on your mind, when you can think of nothing else to do but force this kind of scary laughter out of your lungs._

_Don's hands is still on his arm, and Billy awkwardly reaches up to touch it, his fingers softly stroking the hand. Later he will claim that he just lost his balance when he tried to free the arm he was lying on when he rolls forward towards Don and his mouth and just kisses him._

_It is a kiss, there is nothing too gentle about it at first, though it is not rough, either, bar the stubble they are both sporting. Surprise reigns supreme at that moment and neither of them know what to do for a second but then amazingly enough, Don does not shove him away but kisses him back. Chapped lips work against each other and then Billy feels a tongue tentatively pushing at his lips and he opens them and then Don's tongue is in his mouth, and his is in Don's and he is rolling on top of Don and all that can be heard are soft grunts. Their hands are tangled in each other's hair, softly massaging the scalps. Don's breath tastes sour from lack of food but he is sure that his own breath is nothing to write home about either._

_This kiss is more about reassuring each other than about any sexual motif. _

_They need to know that the other is still there, that the other is still whole. It is a post- case adrenaline breakdown that in the dawn of such a harrowing case always takes on different forms. _

_This time, apparently, in the form of them kissing each other with a fervour that neither, at least Billy suspects so on Don's behalf, has experienced with any of the half- assed acquaintances they made when going out. _

_Once they need to catch their breaths, they rest their foreheads against each other, both panting heavily, hands clutching at hair, legs entangled. _

_There is no awkward moment, really, no looking away, nothing. _

_Billy just presses a kiss to Don's forehead because it just seems right before getting off him, stripping down on his way to the bathroom._

"_Coop?"_

_He turns in the doorway and Don has come up to him from behind, stealthily as he can be, and just leans in to press a cheek just to the corner of his eye and then to the corner of his mouth before turning around and heading towards the door._

"_I'm getting take- out. What you want?"_

"_I saw a Chinese place. That okay with you?"_

"_Sounds good."_

_He is just about to close the door when Don calls his name again._

"_What?"_

"_I'm not escaping. I'm just really hungry."_

_Coop grins, and the mood lightens._

"_So am I, so get your skinny ass moving. I want food on the table when I'm out of the shower."_

"_Leave me some hot water!"_

"_Yeahyeah, whatever."_

_When he comes out of the shower, Don is not back yet and it has started to rain. Billy stands at the window, staring out at the curtain of water and just imagines the string of curses that will come from Don once he is back._

_He is not disappointed._

_That night, after they have eaten, written their reports and watched a bit of sports on the TV, even though neither of them really concentrate on it, they lie down together and for some reason curl into each other. _

Robin can only imagine what she looks like, with her eyes the size of saucers from the way they feel.

"That was you? You were the guys who caught that bitch?"

"Yup."

"Wow. My sister was so scared to actually let her kids out of her sight it was ridiculous. She nearly told her husband to hire a bodyguard for the twins."

She plays with the spoon in her now empty coffee cup, the metal hitting the porcelain in an arrhythmic pattern.

"I expected a macho story, you know, one- upping each other, truth or dare or something like that. Not this."

Billy's mouth quirks up wryly.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm not disappointed. Much better scenario. Shows how much you care about each other. Don wouldn't have done this with just anybody."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

He looks up at her, surprise evident, as if he did not expect this reaction.

"I thought you'd be all over this, you know, all horny."

He smirks to regain his equilibrium.

"No. How could I? You're a good friend, Billy."

He visibly relaxes and leans back in his chair, smiles.

"Yeah, I try to be, anyways. But he makes it easy."

Robin returns the smile. Don does make it easy to be his friend once he has let you past his numerous walls of defences. He is quick to smile and reassure, he is cocky and can come over as brash and arrogant, but only those he lets in know about the insecurities he still feels at times, when he doubts himself, his actions, everything.

She suspects that Billy and she are the only two people who have this kind of insight into him, that not even his father or brother know this much. Charlie and Alan know a lot, well, Alan does at least; while Charlie has gotten better, apparently, he is still pretty clueless when it comes to his older brother.

So it is up to the two of them to be there when his family cannot.

And that works just fine for them.


	11. Reminiscing is a Dangerous Exercise

**Title:** Reminiscing is a Dangerous Exercise  
**Series:** Ulysses *10/12*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Billy- pov, Robin, mention of Don; Don/Robin, barest mention of a gay kiss  
**Rating:** PG-13/K *mentions of a gay kiss*

**Summary: ** "So, how's your sex life with Don?"

**Word Count:** 2972  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** Thanks goes, as always, to valeriev84 for the beta and the encouragement and support...

**Prompt:** # 70 Sightseeing  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS. IronMan belongs to Marvel Comics and Stan Lee.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Chapter 10 – Reminiscing is a Dangerous Exercise**

There have been a lot of kisses in Billy's life.

Kisses from his Mom and Dad.

Kisses from his sisters.

Kisses from friends, girlfriends, buddies.

Some have disappeared into Neverland, forgotten, too many, too little too late, you know the story. There are just some kisses that will never make it into your annals, and then there are some that you will always remember, that always will leave that certain tingle down your spine when you remember them. Kisses that will leave you all warm inside.

Not too many kisses have made it onto Billy's resume yet.

But the kiss he shared with Don all those years ago is one of them.

Definitely. That kiss is not something that can be just ignored.

It was the first time that he kissed a guy, and that Don kissed a guy, too, so it was new territory for both of them. It did not feel that way, though. It sounds like a bad cliché from a horrible romance novel, that it just felt right, for that moment, and he still smirks when the thought comes up.

But the fact remains that the kiss was right, that it was the perfect kiss, and that it definitely helped them get through the torrent of emotions coursing through them.

When he was young, he loved to sneak into Katherine's room and look at the books she has hidden underneath her mattress. Excellent masturbation material they were for someone who had not yet discovered how to hide his Playboys from his mother. His father, once he had realized that his son was getting to that age, had encouraged it despite his mother's objections, but until that point in time had arrived, Billy had depended on friends' stacks or Katherine.

Kind of ironic to think of Katherine, the nun, having cheesy books that elevated sexual encounters to something that made you gag with all the kitsch involved.

Or maybe Billy has just never really had love.

Speaking of love, there is actually someone that he can ask, someone who probably will not mind that much (he hopes, he could always be wrong, but maybe...) when he delves into the intricacies of a sex life with Don Eppes.

Not that he does not know that already, in a way, having shared more than one hotel room with the man, but he has never really known Don when he was in love, and he is just plain curious. No ulterior motive, just the pure curiosity that makes him an excellent investigator and a pain in the hole (well, actually it is 'ass' but Billy is feeling courteous and tries to abstain from swear words for the day), as his sisters and substitute brother like to call him.

Robin has not joined this group yet, but hey, the day is still young.

"So, how's your sex life with Don?"

He has never been one for subtlety.

"It's great. Fantastic. Best I've ever had. Best I ever will have."

Trust Robin to not bat even one eyelash and just go straight through with the answer, without any telling him where to stuff it(Don), blushing and sputtering (Katherine, even though she would be a really bad source for that question) or indignant (Theresa, who would also tell him where to stuff it, sputter and blush). He wonders for a second how Wonder Boy would react to such a question and then decides he might just ask him that when he comes back from his trip tomorrow, just to needle him (it is a lot of fun, after all).

"You're not planning on ever having another one?"

"Nope."

He loves Robin. He really does. She does not talk a circle around you, but just says what she thinks when the situation is appropriate, but Billy has it on good authority that even she gets tongue- tied, mostly around Don. In return, she reduces his usually so confident and arrogant former partner to a puddle of incoherency when she wield her wily ways.

"That's good."

He likes that Robin seems to have finally settled on Don, and vice versa. They are good for each other, the second time around. Granted, the first round was just spectacular sex and his mind has already thought about that particular mental image many times, and he knows that Robin has done so, too.

"So, kissed any guys since The Kiss?"

The fact that she vocally puts this 'event' in capitals shows that this beautiful woman sitting opposite him knows him too well and that it was a mistake to give her his email when they separated back in Miami.

"Yes."

She does not look surprised at that and why should she? He obviously liked The Kiss, so why should he stop?

"And?"

"I kissed a guy, and I liked it..."

She snickers at the misuse of the overly popular song and then keeps looking at him sipping from her cup.

"And?"

"Gotta hand it to the guy, but Don's a fantastic kisser."

"Oh yeah."

They have always been on a wavelength when it came to Don.

"So what now? You know I've already approached him with the idea of a threesome and he wasn't amused..."

He chortles at this.

"Nah, no threesome. Not yet. Might still be a bit too early for him. We'd have to work on that though, and with me outta town so often..."

Robin hangs her head.

"Shame."

"Why, Brooks, never heard you play this tune before..."

This is a surprise. While he knows Robin to be open- minded about a lot of things, he never thought she would actually go for a threesome, even if it is in theory.

"Only with you."

Aha.

"So not just someone random?"

"Nope. Definitely not. I wouldn't feel comfortable."

And neither would Don. Or himself, really. Yes, Don used to be a serial dater, never really sticking with someone, but that was back then, and this is now. He has changed a lot since FR, has stopped with the flirting and innuendos and sultry voice that he had a tendency to overuse when going out. Now he is solid, ready to settle down, and yes, Billy is really happy for him.

Would he mind if Don was to settle down with him if Robin was not in the picture?

No, but only if Don was into it, too, and not just doing it out of a fancy. Then again, the Don of today would not do such a thing.

But would he try to separate Don and Robin for his own advantage?

Never.

"So, how do all the kisses figure out into your grand scheme of things?"

He shrugs.

"No biggie. It's not like I am going to confession and be told that I'll burn in Hell for all eternity for my sins. So I like both men and women. Big deal."

"Does Katherine know?"

"No, but only because I haven't seen her in months."

The stern look that Robin sends him now tells him that she is going to be a great mother, mixing seriousness with affection to get the best behaviour out of her future children.

"It's not like it hasn't been years, you know?"

"It hasn't exactly come up. I mean, she's a nun, how do you tell her about this?"

"She's your sister?"

"These days she feels more like a nun."

He pretends to take a long sip of his coffee even though the cup is empty to hide the pained expression that he knows is flitting over his face.

"Seems like she is hiding behind her habit from your parents' illness."

"She visits them regularly, more frequent than me and Theresa anyways, but she's just so closed off. So yeah, hiding."

"And what are you doing? Not going to visit her in person. It'd help, I bet."

"Theresa came over, but she was just weird to her. She's changing, getting colder and less friendly. Just all about holiness and the spirit and that God will save us all. Katherine used to be a cool nun, adored by children and parents alike. She would play soccer with her charges and always know about the latest trends in fashion and what was in or not. Now she is a shadow of herself."

"She must have been an unusual nun."

"Oh yeah. I mean, I kinda got her reasoning, you know, bad experience and stuff, but still... She never lost touch with the outside world in the way that some nuns in primary school did... Now... Everything's changed. She was close to Mom and Dad, you know? Always lived close to them..."

"I wouldn't know what to do if my parents had Alzheimer's."

"You close?"

He guesses they are not, since the years since they have been friends, she only rarely mentions her family and has only been to visit them twice, if he recalls correctly.

"Not particularly. But still, they are my parents..."

"I know what you mean."

No matter what, your parents are your parents, and unless your relationship with them is messed up beyond repair, you will always be dumbstruck by such a diagnosis. Especially if it is both of them.

Awkward silence.

They do not have those often, in fact very rarely, which might also be due to the fact that so far this is the second time that they are actually talking face to face rather than via email.

"Change of topic?"

"Yes."

"So, Don and you... What exactly went wrong the first time?"

"I got afraid and I ran. I needed to get out of LA, grabbed the first case out I could get my hands on, to Miami, and just fled."

The waitress come to collect their empty cups and they both take the opportunity to order one more round of drinks, cafe latte for Robin and an iced latte macchiato for himself.

"And it did not do me any good. I never thought that a guy would have this hold over me. But Don did. I just got afraid because there he was, a notorious guy. From some of the stories told in the office, you'd think he bedded a different woman every night, and it was all people in law enforcement. I just... I was overwhelmed, I'd say. And that scared me. Because we had been dating for months and it would soon turn serious."

The coffees arrive and they sip from them for a moment.

"I wasn't sure if I was really the right one to tame Don Eppes. If he wanted me to tame him. You know him, Billy, he always held back just a bit. I needed more than that to be sure of him. I didn't get that, so I got afraid and ran."

"And regretted it."

"Oh, fuck yes."

She moans and nearly loses her balance when she dips back a bit too much.

"He sucked me in, rolled me in, and I didn't know how to unentangle myself."

"Nice analogy there."

She sticks her tongue out at him.

"You want more? I was the helpless bee caught in his spider's net and he was steadily advancing towards me, and I couldn't move for fear of being hurt."

"And instead you hurt both of you."

"Yeah, I managed to get loose of the net and in the process wounded myself... You saw me in Miami."

She had been in a state. On the outside she was all composed and strong, but on the inside? Not good. Not good at all. Billy and a lot of cocktails at the hotel bar had done their share and helped her, but the contact with Don had helped her seal the open sores.

"I'm glad you got your act back together. I was afraid I'd have to come to LA and knock sense into you two idiots."

"Just took me a while to get over it, or to get my act together. I didn't want to face him, dunno why. And then when I saw him, I didn't know what to do. I just knew that all of a sudden, I was feeling better than I had all those months after we broke up."

Robin shakes her head at herself, and Billy can just about make out the tiny smirk gracing her lips.

"I hated that he still had this hold over me..."

"He still does, and you over him."

"Yeah, but it was different. I just felt like... I can't explain it."

"Robin Brooks at a loss for words? Surely I'm mistaken."

"Oh shut it."

"Now, Robin, you know I can't do that. It goes against my ethics code."

"I didn't know you had one."

"Well, that's the disguise of it. Make it seem as if there are no morals and ethics."

He gives her his cheekiest smile and she reaches over the table to swipe at his head.

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah, but that's not exactly news."

Her left eyebrow rises in a rather comical way and her hand reaches up to swat him once again.

"No, not really."

"So, anywho... You're all fine and dandy now?"

"Yeah. We've our ups and downs, but every couple has those, right? So we're working through them. He said the three words, I said them, so that's it."

"Commitment?"

"Yes."

"And what d'you think of him going to Temple?"

Robin does not falter, but instead just calmly takes another sip, not to stall, but just because she can. Billy has always admired that about her, her natural grace.

"I was weirded out at first, but it's helping him, he's calmer. Something neither Bradford nor me could've accomplished, so if he sleeps better at night, who am I to disagree?"

"Would you convert?"

Now she really takes a moment to herself, trailing her fingers along the rim of her half- empty glass.

"I honestly don't know."

"What if he asked you to marry him?"

"Can't say, Billy. I've thought about it, God, I've thought it to death, but I still haven't come to a conclusion."

"Do you want to marry him?"

"Yes."

No hesitation. Good.

"Do you want to marry him badly enough to convert?"

"I really want to say yes, but I don't know. I am not into religion. There is a reason I am an atheist."

"So even for you there are boundaries?"

"Yes."

"And you think he will respect that?"

She pierces him with a glance.

"What do you think?"

"You know it is impolite to answer a question with a question."

Her stare does not waver.

"I think given the circumstances, he would be content with a wedding at City Hall. His father is the one I am worried about. He will go completely overboard with preparations. Simply because he'll be so excited that Don is actually getting married that the quiet wedding I want, and Don, too, would never happen, unless we hurt Alan."

They both grin at each other and now would be a good time to talk about what happened last night, but maybe that is best left in the past for now. They have not really seen each other since Miami, at their initial meeting, and even though their contact has been constant, they have not had enough actual face- to- face time.

Besides, knowing Don, the issue will probably arise again, because he just cannot let stuff like this rest. Neither can he, actually.

There is a reason, after all, why they both were nicknamed 'Terrier' back in the FR- days.

"You going to talk to Don about The Kiss?"

Like her, he puts emphasis on the words so that the capitals are audible.

"As if I could pass up that opportunity."

They both snicker.

"I mean, he is all suave and cool, but when you catch him off- guard... I love it."

He agrees with her on that, and he also reckons that Robin is one of the few people that can make him lose his cool.

"You got anymore shopping to do?"

"Don and I went to the open air- cinema last week to see _Iron Man_, and he loved it. I'm getting him the DVD. Did you see the film?"

"Nope. Don't have time for such things like you kiddies."

That remark earns him a swat at the head. He nods at the waitress for the bill and after paying they stroll to the nearest movie- place where Robin goes a bit overboard when she stops by the comic section.

One thing he has never known her to be was a comic geek.

Upon teasing her, she freely admits that she is in the process of converting Don, with the help of David who brought him graphic novels when the other man had been stuck first at hospital and then at home. That his attention span had been too short for an actual novel had actually helped in steering him on the right path.

"How close are you?"

She shrugs and pays for the five movies she is actually buying.

"Dunno yet. He is not exactly resisting, but I figured if I'm bending to his wishes and start with golfing, then he might as well suffer, too. Even the odds, you know?"

"Good woman."

"Now you sound like a caveman."

She gives him a critical scrutinising look.

"And since you didn't shave this morning, you're not that far off. At least you showered, Billy."

"What? You wouldn't be seen with me otherwise? I'll have you know that your partner complained a lot less!"

"He's also a man and apparently you men don't care about showers and such when you're in the company of other men. Pigs, all of you."

She crunches up her nose comically and then pretends to stride away in a huff which makes him laugh harder only than he already is and follows her determined stride.


	12. Attempts to find a Quiet Place

**Title:** Attempts to find a Quiet Place in the Eye of the Porn  
**Series:** Ulysses *11/12*  
**Author:** **loozy**  
**Characters:** Robin- pov, Don, Billy; Don/Robin  
**Rating:** PG-13/K

**Summary: ** She loves to do that when Don is unaware of her scrutiny and with his guard down.

**Word Count:** 4600  
**Spoilers:** after 5x23, _Angels & Devils_  
**Notes:** Words cannot express how grateful I am to valeriev84...

**Prompt:** # 28 Chemistry  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS. IronMan belongs to Marvel Comics and Stan Lee. Rovert Downey, Jr belongs to himself.  
**Feedback:** Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

**Attempts to find a Quiet Place in the Eye of the Porn**

On Sunday, Alan invites them for lunch.

Charlie and Amita are back from whatever retreat they went to, so it is going to be the whole family, plus Billy. It fills Robin with a very girly giddiness that she is considered family by Alan. She has known it before, in a way, from how he and Charlie behave towards her, but to actually hear it is another thing entirely.

He calls them on Saturday evening while they are preparing dinner together. Billy is chopping up avocado, onions, tomatoes and all kinds of spice plants that they got at the farmer's market two blocks down from the apartment. Don is boiling the pasta and sautéing the tomatoes and onions with garlic that make up the alio olio of their meal.

Robin is watching them, amused at the fact that she was kicked out of the small kitchen by the two men who insisted that they are able to make dinner on their own. They told her to entertain them while they are cooking but so far the iPod playing has been enough. They even dance around and sing. It is all very very amusing and she has to fight to keep from laughing out loud. She knows Don and Billy are aware of her, and she loves that they are comfortable enough with her around to do these kind of silly shenanigans.

It is also always good to see Don relaxed enough to actually be silly.

She simply cannot get rid of those mental images of both Don and Billy taking care of her… One would think that Don was not enough for her, which he is, she is quite satisfied with him, thank you very much...

What the hell is going on with her then?

Maybe it is just her true naughty nature emerging, the one that her sisters always claimed to have known of.

Hmm.

She is distracted by Queen's Don't Stop Me Now which causes Don and Billy to start singing at the top of their lungs, quite off- key, but with so much zeal that she is soon hanging off the door frame, tears forming in her eyes. Don uses that to catch her off- guard, grabbing her by the hips and swinging her around in his arms. She can see Billy grabbing his ever- present digital camera and taking a couple of photos and she hopes that she will never forget this moment.

After Queen, Beyonce's Halo plays, which first earns her a dirty look from her boyfriend because she has been messing with his iPod again, and then Billy and he break out into the most awful fake hiphop- dance sequence imaginable.

She actually has to race to the toilet to make it unless she wants to pee herself.

From the swears she can hear while washing her hands, the men, or mainly Don, forgot about the pan and the pot on the stove and the lovely smell of burnt water reaches her. Luckily nothing much has happened, but they are a bit subdued now, only growling in response to the singer's higher reaching notes, which is still funny enough.

It is even funnier that they both know the lyrics. At least Billy has the excuse of his niece playing that song often enough for him when they talked, but Don? No, she cannot think of a reason why he should know the song, other than listening to her sing it. He had been more than amused when she had turned the radio up louder. R'n'B is not really her style, but for some reason that song touched her.

Anyways.

Eventually, the food is nearly done and while Don is setting the table, she uses his moment of distraction to exchange their mp3- players. His taste in music is all right, but she feels her music is better suited to the light mood of the evening. Not that his is all depressing but there is only so much Led Zeppelin, The Who and Ramones she can take.

The food is very good, proving to her that Don can actually cook when he puts his mind to it. Billy's ability is not so much of a surprise since he told her that he actually took cooking classes together with his twin sister during their last year in high school. She had wanted to impress her future husband and blackmailed her brother into going with her so that she would not be alone.

Robin had asked, of course, what the blackmail material had consisted of, but Billy had not answered.

She still wants to find out the answer to that question. She just needs to find a way to go about it.

Saturday night is unspectacular. They eat, they mess around, chat, and she is thoroughly enjoying herself. After last night's angst fest, this is exactly what they all need, what the purpose of Billy's visit was, to have them reconnect and to give her a glimpse into what Don was like before he came back to Los Angeles.

The banter is light- hearted, the beer, wine and Campari flow freely and at around midnight they have the crazy idea to watch Iron Man, which has her containing herself.

Oh, the glee.

Oh, the tension.

She ends up lying in between them, sandwiched quite neatly, though leaning more towards Don, his shoulder, actually, and on the screen you have Robert Downey, Jr, what more does a girl want?

A threesome, apparently, because her thoughts are having fun with her libido again.

A foursome, to be correct, and where did that one come from again?

She groans softly and buries her face in Don's shirt to which he snickers and pats her head. She stares at the screen again and sees that at the moment she had been groaning, Iron Man was not wearing his shirt.

Oh God!

She really needs to contain herself until Billy is in the other room, and then she will have her way with Don. Oh yes, she will. He will not be able to resist her.

After the film she more or less kicks Billy out and wakes up a snoozing Don by kissing her way up and down his chest, flicking his nipples here and there.

He startles awake from the doze he slipped into when the long day started catching up with him and it takes him a moment to realize what is happening before he starts to participate.

Now, Sunday morning, eleven am, she is lying in bed with Don by her side, half his face covered by the pillow he always manages to burrow under even if he starts off with sleeping on top of it. One night she will have a video camera record how he does it. He is dead to the world and she is content. Her boyfriend is not wrapped around her like in a cheesy film or novel, neither of them are big on cuddling when actually sleeping, preferring their own space, so that gives her ample chance to observe him.

She loves to do that when he is unaware of her scrutiny and with his guard down.

His brow is not furrowed, his mouth not turned down, but rather slightly open, little breaths escaping in puffs, he is not quite snoring, more like whistling. The hair on the side he slept on will be flat whereas the other will be laden with electricity once he gets the pillow off it. The lashes flutter now and again and his brows waggle a bit and she has to grin when his nose scrunches up. It is such a Don- movement to do when asleep and she hopes that their child will do that, too.

It is too adorable.

And also hot.

The hand not clutching the comforter to his body is lying lax on the sheets, open with the fingers slightly bent. She loves his fingers, they are a piano- player's fingers even if he has not played in a while. He does not have the time to do so.

Those fingers can do things that other men have tried and failed at before. One more reason to love him, on a purely shallow note. The sex is mind- blowingly fantastic.

Those fingers that hold a gun and fire it on a daily basis but also do a fairly bad impression of a chicken scratch when forced to write anything are rough with callouses from years of not only handling weapons but also baseball bats and hockey sticks. Whenever they hold hands, his are rough against her slightly softer palms. Rowing has left its marks on her, too, and she cannot count the number of times her blisters roughened up and scarred over.

He loves that about her hands, has told her so often enough, that they are not the typical woman's hands.

The comforter is down by his hips and she can see the scar rise up towards his chest and swallows.

It is a big thing, given that the injury itself was not that huge, but they had to widen it for surgery on the internal organs that were damaged and now stands out starkly against his skin. She wants to touch it, did so when the bandages first came off to reassure herself that he is still here, with her.

This is what that attack has done to her.

She needs to see and hold him whenever he is close. He, in turn, does not seem to mind, sometimes she feels as if he needs to contact as much as she does, and not all of it is in a sexual context. He is re- evaluating things now, his job, how much it means to him, and he has even breached the topic of a desk job with her, even though she has nixed that idea.

Yes, she would rest easier knowing that he is away from the danger, but she also knows that if he makes this decision now based solely on the injury, he will not be content. He will figure it out, and she will be there for him.

Her hand ghosts over the scar and up his strong chest, to his slightly hardened nipples. His erogenous zone, one of the first things she ever discovered about his preferences in bed. It just shows how well they fit together, the same goes for her, too.

Her eyes come back to the scar.

In the beginning, it had terrified her to the core because it was proof that despite all his efficiency, professionalism and skill, Don was still human, could still die. For whatever reason she had never owned up to that fact until the attack shoved it right in her face.

She would have preferred to be able to ignore it, to have the attack not happen.

That phone call she had received during the conference had shattered the illusion of the safe and sound world she had felt so comfortable in. Outwardly, she is still the same woman, cool, calm and collected, the three 'c's of composure' as her mother had called them. They had been instilled into Robin and her sisters from the moment they were old enough to understand words.

Such patterns are hard to break, but for Don Robin finds herself defying lessons she has known all her life.

There is another set of c's.

Callous. Cunning. Cruel.

It has taken her some time to get rid of that set. Harvard was the first step, out from under the scrutiny of her mother, she was able to understand that the male population is not out to get the female population; to steal their freedom and independence.

She loves her mother, but that does not mean she has to agree with the woman.

As she slowly trails a hand up into Don's hair, she wonders how the two of them would get along.

She does doubt it in a way, simply because they are such opposing characters, and her mother can be overbearing, especially when it comes to her daughters. Sometimes Robin has wondered if her mother married the wrong man and so decided to try and stop her daughters from making the same mistake.

Only she cannot see what is wrong with her father. He is a lovely man, patient and kind, maybe a bit conservative in his world views, but she loves him. He is kind of like Alan, always there with a listening ear and probably the only person bar her younger sister, who was alright with her moving to Los Angeles when she was offered the position of AUSA here. It is a bit like fate, isn't it, when she considers it in retrospect.

Don Eppes and her moved to Los Angeles in the same year, if for different reasons.

Still, she would like to have Don meet them, if simply to show him that she has a family, too. He might think she does not should she continue to withhold them from him.

Haha.

She knows he knows better than that. They just need to find a weekend to get away together, with a real reason, and not a reason, like what she tried with New York. She still cringes over what she attempted to do back then.

Not her best moment.

Dark hazy eyes blink up at her when her fingers trace his brow. Seconds after waking, Don is different from the Don she knows and loves.

He is softer, not guarded, cute and also very cuddly, kind of like a teddy bear. Only without the big teeth and massive body. Don's teeth are white and shiny and his body is muscular, strong and not as fuzzy as a bear's, either.

She likes it that way, it is perfect.

"Mornin'."

Don in the morning is also not the most articulate person, something they have in common, preferring to speak in monosyllabic grunts that are meant to be words before he gets his first cup of coffee.

For her, if he is in a good mood, he makes an effort to actually speak coherently, though.

"Morning."

"How long you been awake?"

"Not long."

She brushes over his forehead, smoothes out the wrinkles that form when he glances over at the clock. It is a bit too early to be awake on a Sunday when they have nothing to do, really, and she knows it. She also knows a very effective way to get them both back to sleep.

Don in the morning is also very horny and after lightning speed- trips to the bedroom, they get to work on getting back to sleep in a fun way.

When they finally rouse, it is already half past twelve and the sun has risen to bathe the apartment in a warm glowing light. Billy is in the kitchen, trying to manage Don's coffeemaker which they renamed LiLo, after Lindsay Lohan for its stoned and irratic behaviour and lack of direction.

You can press coffee on the damn thing and get lemons, is what Don always says, yet he still has not gotten rid of the abomination yet. It seems as if he is attached to it, for some reason. If Robin was a woman with less self- confidence and knowledge of Don, she would suspect him of fancying Lohan, which he does not, if his disgusted moaning whenever he sees her is any indication.

"Don, how the fuck do you work this fucking thing?"

Clearly, Billy is not a morning person, either, without his caffeine shot.

Don just grins, grabs the kettle and fills it with water before turning to his friend and then points to the damned machinery.

"Billy, LiLo. LiLo, Billy."

"LiLo?"

"After Lindsay Lohan."

"The fuck you naming that thing after that fuckin' pseudo actress?"

"'cuz it's a bitchy piece of shit. That's why we named it LiLo."

"Ah, makes sense. So we're having instant?"

"Yes. Didn't you get any yesterday, too?"

Robin pushes off the door frame where she has been lounging, and walks over to the 'fridge to set the table for breakfast.

"No, yesterday it worked."

"Yeah, well, she is a bitch, that's how she got the name."

"And how exactly would you know about that woman anyways, Eppes?"

Don smirks, then points to Robin.

"Girlfriend. And trashy magazines. And what do 'ya got to say for yourself, Billy- boy?"

"Sister with children. And trashy magazines."

As they banter on about everything and nothing, starting with what they're having for breakfast, then moving on to how they are having the eggs they settled on, Robin sits down at the table, sipping her coffee and watching those two very fine specimen walk around in the kitchen.

Or maybe it is more like parading, in a way.

Neither of them walk, both of them can apparently pull off a strut if they want to. She knew this about Don already, knew that he rarely walks without purpose, which shows in his stride, but Billy was a blank sheet. Until now.

Now she can see him swing his hips when he opens the 'fridge door to get butter and bacon, his lean built emphasized by the basketball shorts he is sporting over the boxers that are peaking out from underneath. She is not sure if he is teasing her, but is willing to go along with it for the sake of her fantasies.

Don is another matter.

Contrary to popular belief around the water cooler, spiced up by pseudo knowledge supplied by Nadine, he does not sleep in the nude, always moving to at least pull on a pair of boxers even after sex. Now, he is dressed in a pair of sweats and nothing underneath as the nights have gotten chilly and she needs him to warm her. It is sweet that he is willing to be her very personal furnace. They do not even need to cuddle for him to heat up the blankets and everything around him. Every time he moves, his sweats glide over his ass and Robin is practically salivating by the time he bends down to retrieve the grill from the oven.

She really would like to jump him right now, this very moment, and would not even care if Billy was watching, or maybe even participating.

Now there is a nice thought that she has been playing with for the last couple of hours, actually since Friday evening, to be honest, and maybe she should have a talk with Don about the possibility of a threesome?

It might be hot, and she knows that she can make Don do nearly everything that is not job- related.

If that is not devotion, she does not know what is, and surely that should out him into her mother's good book should she know about this, right?

Maybe, but first Robin would have to tell her who she is dating.

Her father knows his way around law enforcement, what with having been a judge at the Massachusetts Supreme Court and still has his ears out for news, especially in the FBI. Robin is very sure he knows Don, and probably even Billy, since they were both living in Boston during their FR- time, and her father always knew who and what was going on in her hometown.

And that is also one way to kill a mood, thinking about the parents.

But then again, that mood vanishes, anyways, the moment that Billy actually slaps Don's ass when the other man is stretching up to get something from the pantry.

What the Hell?

All she can do is stare and fight with herself to not Not NOT moan out loud.

That would be a very bad idea. Very very very bad.

All she can see now, in constant repeat and in slow motion to boot, is the image of Billy smirking, swinging his hand and then landing a perfect smack on Don's bottom, something that she herself has tried multiple times to do but has always failed.

Is that a sign?

Maybe Don needs his ass to be slapped by Billy on a regular basis, and maybe she could learn something from watching it again and again? She does not mean the mental video, but the real – life version. That would be lovely, really.

She really would like to have some downtime with the two guys right now, read them the riot act for teasing her like this and then have her wicked way with them.

Maybe it would be better for her sanity to think about her parents.

Which would mean she would be missing out on whatever show the guys are putting up and is she insane?

Maybe, yes, that is debatable, but she is sane enough to not not appreciate a sight like this.

And thank God that neither Don nor Billy are paying any attention to her. If they had been throwing her looks, she might have suspected them of playing with her, but they are in their element, having found their groove back, and why in crikey fuck are they playing around like that?

On a completely unrelated note, where did that _Tropic Thunder_- reference come from, anyways? She wants to smack Don on the back of the head for quoting it when in private. Why did he have to make her watch it _again_? Or actually it was the other way around. Together with _Iron Man_. It is a good thing that he never said anything when she subjected him to a row of movies in the last couple of weeks all starring the same actor… Hmm… On that note, Robert Downey, Jr and Don? Wow, very nice imagery, too…

Maybe she should go for a run.

Yes, a run sounds like an excellent idea, she can get rid of all the tension inside her, and if she could she would take Don with her to help her relieve some of that tension in a hidden area in the park…

It is not like they have not done that before, you know?

Her thoughts are disrupted by Don placing a plate of scrambled eggs with scallions and tomatoes in front of her, together with a cup of spicy tea, a combination which she loves to have. She wants to thank him, she does, but then she gets distracted by a fleck of _something_ nestled in the chest hair near his right nipple and all she wants to do is flick her lips over it again and again until it is gone.

And then maybe some more for good measure, just to be sure he is clean and because he loves it, and the sounds he makes when she sucks his nipples?

Oh yeah, baby, that is audio porn right then and there.

Plus, he opens his mouth a little and these little puffs of breath come out and his lips are forming this beautiful bowshape that just makes her want to kiss him senseless once she has let off the nipples.

But no, they are not alone, so she just settles on smiling at him and then picking at the _something_ with her fingers, and if she tugs a bit at the hair to get a reaction out of him, well, so be it.

He just smirks at her, as if he knows exactly what is going through her mind and when she glances down she just glares at his lower half.

That man has to have the best self- control ever known to mankind.

She wants to hit him over the head with her full plate and then clean him up with her tongue before killing him slowly during sex, but alas, they have company, and if he can behave, then so can she.

She hopes.

Her hormones laugh at her and tell her to just give up and give in.

As they eat breakfast, conversation flows easily, and apparently she is part of it, too, though later she will not be able to remember a single thing.

Robin feels as though she has the classic image of a devilish figurine on one shoulder and an angelic one on the other, and both are warring for dominance.

The fake devil looks a lot like her mother, while the other looks like Don. A shrink, Don's shrink, preferably, she likes the man, would have a field day with that image, especially what with her mixing up the sexual designation, the devil as a woman and the angel as a man.

Or maybe she should never have watched _Dogma_. Her whole religious views have been a bit askew since then.

The devil- Mom and angel- Don are now fighting for dominance over her head, her thoughts, her imagination and she really hopes that Don wins because that might bode well for a possible future meeting between the two real life- people.

He can be quite diplomatic once he has set his mind to it, and for her he would make the effort, she is sure.

Somehow she gets through breakfast and the washing- up, which she does not have to do, because the two men can be quite gentleman- ly, too, and besides, Don likes his dishes done just this way, exactly, and while she is good for drying them, she is not the right person to wash them.

He can be anal that way.

And why, why did she just think of anal when she went for a whole four minutes, repeat: four minutes, without thinking of sex with Don?

Thank God Billy is a good reader of people's emotions and he retreats into his room with this huge gigantic smirk on his face while Don and her go to the bedroom, hands already going places that would make Billy's sister Katherine surely blush from head to toe.

She needs to get rid of all this horniness before they head over to Alan's.

Don is more than willing to help her with her 'problem'.

That is at least one problem taken care of.

They lie in bed after, her head resting on Don's slightly sweaty chest, and Robin is nearly lulled into sleep by his rhythmic stroking of her hair.

She loves what he does to her before, during, but also after sex, because no- one has ever managed to relax her so fully that she just wants to melt into a puddle beneath his hands.

"I don't think Charlie and Billy are gonna get along."

And just like that, she is not sleepy anymore.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because… I dunno… Billy has never liked him."

"Did they ever meet?"

"Only that one time when Billy came to LA to help us with a case, but they didn't hang out, you know? There's this kinda strange tension between them… Just, you know…"

His worry- vein has come out. She reaches a hand up to stroke it.

"Everything's gonna be okay. They're big boys, they can work it out, whatever it is."

"I hope so. But I don't think Charlie likes Billy, either, really dislikes him, you know?

"Well, then…"

She actually does not know what to say to that.

"Tension."

"Yup."

"This is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuun."

She draws out the word on purpose, hoping to make him laugh, chuckle, anything to elevate his mood, but all she gets is a weak lift of the lips.

"Yeah."

She would believe him that he believes her if he had said it with more conviction.

As it is, she cannot help but feel like this is the calm before the storm.


End file.
